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Plant the Seeds for Tomorrow: Implementing a CMMS

Plant the Seeds for Tomorrow: Implementing a CMMS

Most CMMS’ Fail at the Implementation Phase, Don’t Let This Be You

Most organizations only use 50% of their CMMS’s capabilities.  This is for a variety of reasons, but one of the largest reasons, is that the CMMS was not setup, configured or implemented correctly.  If the implementation of the CMMS was not done properly, the usability and information in the CMMS limits its potential.

How can you prevent the implementation from failing or delivering sub-par results?  There are a few ways to ensure a successful CMMS implementation.  This post will cover the 2 main ways to ensure a successful implementation. [Read more…]

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Bronze — Use the Right One in the Right Place

Bronze — Use the Right One in the Right Place

By Richard Lang of Abonnel Precision Engineering

This quarter we would talk a little about bronzes, their properties and applications. One of our readers said they occasionally hear people refer to a brass bush when in fact they want a bronze bush and could we write something on this. Lets also look at the range of materials one may come across:

  • Leaded Gun Metal (LG2)
  • Aluminium Bronze
  • High tensile brass
  • Phosphor Bronze (PB1)
  • Manganese bronze
  • Brass

[Read more…]

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Case Study: Creating a Spare Parts Purchase List with Confidence

Case Study: Creating a Spare Parts Purchase List with Confidence

Guest Author: Jason Ballentine, VP of Engineering for ARMS Reliability

Starting from Scratch with Spares

As anyone with a hand in running a household knows, it’s important to keep a stockpile of key items. You certainly don’t want to find out the hard way that you’re on your last square of toilet paper. But in the case of a facility like a power plant, a missing spare part could be more than just a nuisance—it could be downright expensive. [Read more…]

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5 Tips to Kick-Start Continuous Improvement Implementation

5 Tips to Kick-Start Continuous Improvement Implementation

I’m currently working with a large company on a continuous improvement project that started a few months ago with a detailed analysis on some of their critical assets. Within one weeks’ time we had a list of over 250 recommendations that needed to be implemented and performed in order to recognize an improved and sustained level of productivity that would provide a quick return on investment and lower the unit cost of their product.

Two months ago I was highly confident they would jump right on completing the recommended tasks. [Read more…]

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Confidence and “Confidence”

Confidence and “Confidence”

Confidence is used in reliability to give a probabilistic value to the likelihood that a taken measurement will represent a full population.  It is determined by measuring a sample size and then using a selected statistical distribution table to translate to a likelihood. Emotional confidence is how one feels about making a decision based on known information at a specific point in time.   Similar but different. But it is important to connect them.  This is why. [Read more…]

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The Right Way to Select the Right CMMS

The Right Way to Select the Right CMMS

Selecting the Right CMMS can mean the Difference between Success and Failure

Imagine spending $100,000s or $1,000,000s on a software package that is supposed to improve your maintenance operation.   A few years later you still have not seen any improvement and you did not generate any return on investment with the software.  This happens every day when businesses select the wrong the CMMS.

Selecting a CMMS can be an overwhelming task, especially when so much rides upon the success of CMMS.  You can read reviews and select a CMMS based on those, but the CMMS may not be the right one for you.  The CMMS has to be fit for your business / operation or you will not see the right results.  Thankfully there are two ways to select the right CMMS. [Read more…]

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#2 Best Job — Risk Manager

#2 Best Job — Risk Manager

“One Thing is Certain: 2017 Will Be the Year of Uncertainty for CEO’s’”

Shouted a recent Wall Street Journal article.[1]

Why?

Let’s look at the reasons at why we live in VUCA time (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).

  • President Trump is disrupting business rules and business models.
  • Technological change is increasing.
  • Mass immigration is resulting in political divisions.
  • Climate change is real and increasing.
  • Globalization benefits are unclear due to job and work transference.

[Read more…]

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What is the Best Reliability Training for Me?

What is the Best Reliability Training for Me?

Reliability engineering, analysis, management, testing… − Where do I get the skills and training to be really effective? University or College? In-house? Conferences? Webinars? Software or Equipment Suppliers? Journals? A colleague? − Do I need a Certification? − Do I need an integrated program, or only specific stand-alone techniques?

Everyone has to start somewhere. And if we are going to be smart about it, we should examine our needs and make a plan… [Read more…]

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A Primer on Probability Distributions

A Primer on Probability Distributions

The most common types of engineering data are measurements. There can be a few, thousands, or millions of data points to analyze. Without analytic tools, one can get lost in the data.

This article presents

  • Dotplots
  • Data if frequently clustered about a central value and displays variation.
  • Frequency histograms
  • Distribution characteristics
  • Normal Distributions

[Read more…]

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Prototypes and Learning

Prototypes and Learning

Prototypes Help You Learn About Your Product

To reduce schedules, prototype cycles are often randomly slashed. Eventually the time and resources are needed and create cost and schedule over runs. We need to recognize that prototypes exist to help us learn about our product. If we use a risk based test strategy approach, we can test at lower levels to gain the required understanding. Then, we can confirm our learning with the higher level, system prototypes.

Just 4 minutes and 19 second long. To me, a prototype does include bench testing at lower levels as long as it includes the relevant functionality to represent the area for learning. [Read more…]

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The Top 5 Ways to Ruin a Web-Meeting

The Top 5 Ways to Ruin a Web-Meeting

Just for fun a few months back I wrote a blog on what I listed as the 5 worst inventions in last 10 years. I looked over that list today and was astonished to find out that I did not list the Web-based meeting as one of these inventions. Those who have known me for years know that I really despise non-value added work and over the last 5 years according to my calculations I have wasted a full 6 months of time attending web meetings. Time that could have been spent working on great idea or invention the entire world has been waiting for while I was listening to someone read through a list of agenda items that could have been sent in an email.

The result however is a blog post on the 5 critical mistakes of Web Meetings! (Please be sure to read on for my 5 rules for web-based meetings!) [Read more…]

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Understanding FMEA Failure Modes – Part 1

Understanding FMEA Failure Modes – Part 1

Why Describing the Mode of Failure is Essential

Do you know why we ask for the “mode” of failure when performing FMEAs? This article will provide theory and practical examples of defining failure modes, and highlight an application tip that can improve your FMEA effectiveness.

“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that don’t work”
Thomas Edison

[Read more…]