Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
The true cost of maintenance to a company includes the lost production time, cost of utilities not used, overhead costs, handover costs and more.
A 6-step procedure that guides you and your organization, department, and team to analyze your business and operational risks, and develop an enterprise asset management system that is purpose-built to deliver your organization world class reliability.
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Some managers resist outside help to make improvement in how they are managing reliability and maintenance. They think they can “get back to basics” first and then re-assess. They fail to see that if they could really do that on their own, they wouldn’t have allowed the slide to where they are today.
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In this video, we’re exploring the best way to conduct a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis. When it comes to RCM, there’s definitely a “recipe” for success that includes two key ingredients: firsthand knowledge of the equipment and its operating environment, and a strong understanding of RCM principles and how to apply them.
We’ll break down three common approaches to RCM—outsourcing, single analyst, and the facilitated working group approach. Discover why the facilitated working group approach stands out as the best way to ensure a comprehensive, effective RCM analysis. I’m Nancy Regan, and I hope you enjoy the video!
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Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) and the management of spare parts inventory (stores) are often overlooked elements in a framework. However, they play a critical role in ensuring that maintenance teams have the right tools, parts, and materials needed to keep assets running efficiently. Without a well-structured MRO and stores strategy, even the most proactive maintenance programs can suffer from delays, unplanned downtime, and excessive costs.
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DYNAMICS OF HEAT IN COMMERCIAL PIZZA OVEN MECHANISMS
Thermal stress on shafts leads to premature failure. Understanding the factors that influence the bending forces of shafts and implementing counter measures can significantly increase their longevity.
Commercial pizza ovens are engineering marvels designed for a singular, high-intensity purpose: the rapid and consistent delivery of heat to dough and toppings. Operating at temperatures frequently exceeding 800 degrees Fahrenheit, these systems rely on a complex interplay of radiation, convection, and conduction. While the culinary focus is on the crust, the mechanical burden falls squarely on the internal components, most notably the heavy-duty shafts that drive conveyor systems and rotating decks. These components serve as the backbone of the operation, inside large, industrial-sized ovens where they undergo extensive temperature gradients.
In this article, we will observe the factors that influence bending forces and their countermeasures.
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Understanding system performance and total cost of ownership is fundamental to reliability programs for facilities and infrastructure. As reliability engineers know, all of our knowledge is about the past. All of our decisions are about the future. Monte Carlo analysis is our best tool for bridging our knowledge of the past with future uncertainties.
Monte Carlo analysis calculates the probability of outcomes by running multiple simulations using random variables. Analysis using Monte Carlo simulations aligns closely with reliability programs, in which thousands of assets vary in cost and decay rates by orders of magnitude. The power of most first-generation models using Monte Carlo simulations lies more in the insights than in the absolute values of the forecasts.
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The Importance of Reliability in Product Development: A Case Study of an Electromechanical Valve for EV Battery Temperature Control. In the fast-evolving world of electric vehicles (EVs), the precision and reliability of components such as electromechanical valves are critical. These valves, which control the flow of coolant to manage battery temperature, must perform flawlessly under varying conditions. This article delves into the importance of reliability at each stage of product development, from design review to customer release, and highlights when a project might need to halt due to reliability concerns.
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Received a short question last week. The person writing seems to already know the answer, yet asked:
If we replace an item after a duration equal to the MTTF value, we would avoid failures, right?
Well, no, most likely not, was my response. What is your response? How would you answer this question? [Read more…]
Most equipment failures have no relationship to length of time in-service. Most failures are unpredictable. But if you detect a future failure early, you can plan and do the repair cost effectively before it becomes a breakdown.
With only about 15% to 20% of your equipment failures being age related, and the other 80% to 85% being totally time-random events, how can you improve the uptime of your plant and facility? This article explains how to detect the random failures that make-up the vast majority of maintenance expense and production downtime by using simple, low cost condition monitoring methods.Keywords: equipment condition monitoring, random equipment failure, equipment failure patterns
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In 2021, risk team implemented a quantitative risk-based approach to insurance renewals which resulted in reducing the cost of insurance by 60% and improving the quality of coverage across all insurance lines. This approach allowed us to save, or rather pay a fair price for insurance across the globe. Key to success was not to rely on market “best practices”, but on testing various hypotheses in the market and relying on data.
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If you’ve worked in reliability or maintenance for any length of time, you’ve probably sat through a meeting where someone asks “so how many spares do we need?” and the answer is basically “well, we’ve always kept two on the shelf.” Or the classic PM frequency debate — why is it every 6 months? Because it’s always been every 6 months.
That kind of thing bugged me. Not because people are lazy, but because the right tools to do it properly are usually locked behind expensive software or buried in a textbook somewhere. So I built four free, browser-based calculators that cover the core decisions reliability engineers deal with all the time. No logins, no licence fees, no fluff. [Read more…]
In the previous chapter the differences between agile Hardware and Agile Software were explored. This chapter explores the first part of a practical look at how to apply agile methodologies to your hardware development process.
First let’s examine the impact of following the “old ways” that have become normalized as part of the everyday hardware development processes:
Developing any hardware-based product requires careful planning, management, design, and testing before it can be manufactured and shipped to customers. This has resulted in the traditional “waterfall” development model, where work is done in a series of serial activities, with review and approval requirements before moving along the development path.
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Welcome to Storytime! In this video, I’m sharing the most valuable lesson my mentor, John Moubray, taught me. Years ago, I visited John and his wife at their home in Asheville, North Carolina. When I arrived, the first thing he asked me was, “Look around my house and tell me what’s missing.” I had already noticed that there wasn’t a single TV in sight. John believed that time is our most precious asset, far more valuable than money, and he didn’t want to waste a moment of it.
This story left a deep impression on me, and I carry it with me to this day. Time is the great equalizer—we all get 24 hours a day, and it’s up to us to decide how we use it. Thank you for choosing to spend some of yours with me today!
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Dear friends, I am happy to share this video to illustrate how to use JASP, the free open source statistical software to perform process capability analysis. I recommend to watch the following related videos before watching this video:
[Read more…]“Innovation has a lot to do with timing.” — Steve Jobs
When FMEAs are done is just as important as how they are done. In this article, I’ll share evaluation criteria for the FMEA Quality Objective regarding timing.
FMEAs need to be completed through Recommended Actions, Actions Taken, and risk reduced to an acceptable level by certain dates. Meeting the timing objectives of FMEAs means they were started and completed by the required dates. [Read more…]
