Articles

Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

Distinguishing NPI Materials Management from Project Management

A sometimes overlooked function of production planning, is materials management for new product introduction (NPI).

In our previous article, we covered fundamentals of managing contract manufacturers (CM) value streams. The goal for NPI is similar: we want NPI prototypes available per a prototype plan and (eventually) a production plan.

Below is a simplified value stream map for a managing a contract manufacturer using “plan, source, order, make, deliver” as major subprocesses. The planning function “NPI Materials Manager” is shown with corresponding interfaces and is the focus of this article.

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by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

The Answer That’s Clear, Simple, and Wrong

H.L. Mencken, the sharp-witted satirist and critic of early 20th-century American life, once wrote, “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”¹ Mencken, born in Baltimore in 1880, was known for his incisive critiques of societal norms and his skepticism of simplistic solutions to complex issues.

Mencken’s wisdom applies to both everyday life and technical fields. His insights are particularly relevant in the engineering, manufacturing, and reliability disciplines, where the temptation to seek easy answers can lead to costly errors. We’ll start with a relatable everyday example before exploring documented cases in engineering and manufacturing that demonstrate the pitfalls of oversimplified solutions.

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by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

The Origins and Power of the FINESSE Fishbone Diagram for Reliability Engineers

You get a few raised eyebrows when you claim to be Communicating with FINESSE. Well, at least you do if the person on the other end does not understand that FINESSE stands for something. Or if they do not understand what a fishbone diagram is. Here’s a short review of the origins of FINESSE and how the FINESSE fishbone diagram powers the communication of reliability engineers.

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by nomtbf Leave a Comment

3 Recent Questions and Comments Concerning MTBF

Trying to Respond to All Questions and Comments Concerning MTBF

Over the past couple of days, like most days, have received questions and comments concerning MTBF. I do try to respond to all questions and acknowledge the comments.

Glad to help in anyway I can, so please feel free to send me your questions. Certainly do appreciate the supporting comments, or any comments for that matter.

Let’s take a look a few such discussion that occurred over the past two days. [Read more…]

by Semion Gengrinovich Leave a Comment

SW reliability

Software reliability and Hardware reliability are two distinct Concepts within the field of engineering each with its own unique characteristics and measurement challenges.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Agile EVM Based DOD Software Development Project WBS

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

“Department of Defense (D0D) acquisition must improve program while working within budgetary constraints. The DoD community shows an interest in utilizing Agile methodologies, but struggles to reap Agile’s benefits. They encountered challenges including the historically built-up processes that enforce heavy-weight oversight, the outdated, manufacturing focused Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provided in DoD Handbook: Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) for defense Material Items (MIL-STD-881C), and the inability of traditional waterfall-based process to accommodate iterative development.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Fundamentals of Vibration Measurement and Analysis Explained

Thanks to Peter Brown for this article.

1. Introduction:

The advent of the microprocessor has enormously advanced the process of vibration data acquisition and analysis in recent years. Measurement tasks that took hours only two decades ago can now be completed in minutes and better decisions made because of better data presentation.

However, the basic processes of measurement and analysis have remained essentially unchanged, just like the machines from which the vibration is measured. The results of the measurement and data analysis need to be compared with known standards or guidelines and decisions made as to whether the machine is acceptable for service or maintenance should be planned. Increasingly these processes are being handled electronically but we are still a long way from replacing the fundamental knowledge and experience of the vibration analyst.

In this article we will review the basic principles of vibration measurement and analysis in order to lay the foundation for capable fault diagnosis to be considered later.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Will you Accept a “No Brainer” Opportunity?

The “no brainer” opportunity

Imagine, 6 operational locations with a combined maintenance spend of $438 million and acceptable but mediocre performance. Production outputs ranged from 70% to 94% of nameplate values.

The cost savings potential is $97 million.
Improvement to nameplate levels adds upwards of $768 million in revenues.
The spend to achieve that over 3 to 5 years was only $30 million.

That’s faster than the current mine permitting processes. Revenue was equivalent to adding a new mine at about 3% of the typical capital investment. Yes, this was a real customer in the mining industry with operations throughout North America.

[Read more…]

by Joe Anderson Leave a Comment

The Importance of Proper Job Plans in CMMS and EAM Systems

By Paul Crocker CMRP CAMA, VIB1

In today’s industrial environment, the efficiency and reliability of maintenance operations are crucial. This is where Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems come into play. These systems are designed to manage the maintenance function by tracking maintenance work, parts used, failure codes, and more.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Condition Based Maintenance vs. Preventive Maintenance Tasks

Finding the Best with RCM

Hi everyone, I’m Nancy Regan, coming to you from the Watermelon Festival in Russellville, Alabama! In today’s video, I talk about how Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) can help you find the “sweet spot” when choosing proactive maintenance tasks for your equipment.

Just like every watermelon has a sweet spot, RCM helps you pinpoint the best maintenance task for each Failure Mode. Using a simple example like “oil degrades due to normal use,” I explain how RCM guides you to decide between different options, such as Scheduled Replacements or Condition Based Maintenance. By answering the RCM questions, you can figure out which task is the most cost-effective or reduces the risk of failure to an acceptable level.

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Confidence Intervals (Part 3) for Proportion and Standard Deviation

Dear friends, We are happy to release this third video in our series on Confidence Intervals! In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe has explained how to determine confidence intervals for population proportion and standard deviation with day-today application examples! Hemant has also illustrated use of templates for quick calculation!

Links to other related videos:

Confidence Interval (Part-1) for Mean (Sigma Known)

Confidence Interval (Part-2) for Mean (Sigma unknown)

Chi-square Distribution

Chi-square Test of One Variance

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Fundamentals of Managing an Outsourced (CM) Value Stream

This article will cover the management of a contract manufacturer (CM) value stream from the perspective of a company that has outsourced the manufacturing of its product. A typical CM model is most likely “turn-key” such that the “Company” purchases the only finished goods from the CM.

Part/component purchases are a shared responsibility between the company and CM. Company-controlled suppliers have negotiated pricing and purchased orders may be placed by the company or the CM for long-lead and specialty items.

Ultimately, the liability for part/component inventory rests on the company. For this reason, minimizing inventory, maximizing inventory turns, and value stream flexibility are some major objectives of managing a CM.

[Read more…]

by Laxman Pangeni Leave a Comment

Markov Chain Analysis

Markov Chain Analysis and Eigenvector/Eigenvalue Problem: A Powerful Tool for Reliability Engineering

In reliability engineering, predicting system behavior over time is crucial for maintenance planning and risk assessment. One powerful mathematical tool for this analysis is Markov Chain modelling. In this article, I’ll demonstrate how Markov Chains can predict device reliability using a real-world example: battery reliability in reliability testing facilities.

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by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment

5 Decisions Reliability Analysis Can Help With

Introduction to Reliability or Life Analysis

Reliability Analysis or Life Analysis is a process where asset records are used to build a statistical model for the asset. The model will in turn provide information of its future performance. It becomes an indispensable tool for asset managers in terms of making life cycle decisions with regards to the asset preservation and eventually replacement. Let alone the safety of employees. Typically, though not necessarily always, those records are obtained from the Computer Maintenance Management System (CMMS).

The basis of the model is a statistical distribution. An example of the process is illustrated in Diagram 1 where a number of “n” centrifugal pumps are run on a test bench until they fail. Each time interval to failure is recorded and once all the failure records are collected, a normalized frequency graph can be constructed. This frequency graph helps define the statistical distribution that best represents the life cycle of a typical component in the population. Using specific mathematical transformations applied to the distribution, the probability of failure after a defined mission time can be derived. And much more information as we will discover in this article.

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by nomtbf 3 Comments

How We Think About Reliability

How We Think About Reliability Is Important

Getting on an airplane we think about the very low probability of failure during the flight duration. This is how we think about reliability.

When buying a car we think about if the vehicle will leave us stranded along a deserted stretch of highway. When buy light bulbs for the hard to reach fixtures we consider paying a bit more to avoid having to drag out the ladder as often.

When we consider reliability as a customer does, we think about the possibility of failure over some duration.

And, we really don’t like it when something fails sooner than expected (or upon installation). [Read more…]