Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
While working in the field of Asset Management formerly known as Maintenance and Reliability for over 30 years I have worked with my share of Managers and Leaders. Those who have known me for years know that I started in the field as a Pipefitter Apprentice, worked as a Journeyman and Team Leader for a number of years, did a stint as a Maintenance Supervisor, went to night school to become a Reliability Engineer and then as a business owner working with customers around the world. [Read more…]
In search of excellence in MRO Materials Management (indirect materials / spare parts), I have noticed two curious facts.
First, even in developed countries, industrial companies and providers of ERPs (enterprise management systems) are technologically very backward in this specialty.
Second, those very little companies or experts who developed differentiated technology keep it safe guarded as a trade secret.
This exposure results in considerable accumulation of knowledge and expertise, and a unique set of observations and conclusions which certainly could not fail to be shared with the concerned community. [Read more…]
Coordinating all of the maintenance activities within a site can be overwhelming. A schedule is supposed to help reduce the sense of being overwhelmed. But why is it that when trying to pull together a schedule for the next shift, day or week, it always seems to be a mad dash?
Often times the maintenance scheduling process is not well defined or thought out, and this leads to being overwhelmed. It also projects an image to our operational partners that we do not have our house in order. This image may or may not play a role in having our Maintenance windows moved or cancelled, further our scheduling issues. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Chris Peace (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Sometimes, it seems that every newspaper edition, news broadcast or news website carries yet another story about a disaster – an event that might have been avoided by better decision making.
But do we ask whether such decisions were informed by risk assessments? And if so, how effective were those risk assessments for informing the decision makers about the risks? Which techniques were used in the risk assessments? Were the results presented in a way that made sense to the decision makers? Do risk assessors follow a good process and so achieve some consistency in results, or do they just get lucky? [Read more…]
The differential pressure transmitter (PT) is used to detect a head of pressure.
The sensing element is connected to the process by pipework and flexes in proportion to the pressure. The resulting distortion produces an electric signal that is amplified and converted to a value on a read-out.
Keywords: pressure sensor, strain gauge, tank level, process pressure, pressure difference. [Read more…]
This is the third session from the Annual Apex Ridge Reliability Seminar held in Boston.
In this session, I discuss the methodology of HALT and how to connect it with program tools and objectives.
The philosophy of HALT is often misunderstood simply due to its name and acronym, “Highly Accelerated Life Testing” (HALT).
It is not an accelerated life test, it’s really not even a test. HALT is a process of increasing stress on a design to induce failures for the purpose of learning about the design and improving its robustness.
It’s a discovery process. [Read more…]
In a customer’s mind, the product works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work as expected it has failed. This may or may not be a reliability problem.
A customer or someone using your product brings a set of expectations to the experience. The range of expectations may range from very little to very high functioning, value production, and durability.
Failures are defined by customers.
In part, this is the functional capability, the operating within specifications, and the durability. The customer’s definition of reliability may or may not follow the design specifications.
It is the comparison of what should happen to what does happen. [Read more…]
Here is a diagram I generated when I was in the reliability group at my facility.
It came about because I was trying to identify why we may not be showing the value that was expected from the reliability improvement work we were doing. [Read more…]
Something to think about in a day and age when most companies post their mission, vision, and goals on the company web page.
Do we really stand behind these statements and demonstrate the behaviors that clearly show we are willing to do what it takes to create a safe workplace?
If you have ever questioned this, consider two questions I ask RCM Teams as we analyze failure modes that impact health, safety, and environment: [Read more…]
Did you know that hot air doesn’t rise when there is no or very little gravity?
The electronics used to steer an oil exploration drill head 5 miles deep in the earth experiences 200°C sulfuric acid immersion along with continuous 50,000G shocks.
I used to think the environment under the hood a car was difficult. [Read more…]
Most of us would agree that there is a new global economy being forged right now in the manufacturing sector.
Inevitably, this translates to a renewed focus on transferring more business value to the customer. Central to this will be linking RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) facilitation with effective maintenance program implementations.
In short, the difference between what we, as RCM Facilitators, have been doing in the past and what we will be doing from now on is: a strong emphasis on what tactics are required in order to achieve the failure management strategies an RCM Team defines.
That is, we will conduct the decisions phase of the analysis somewhat differently. (i.e. The 3rd pass through when walking-the-dog in an RCM analysis) [Read more…]
This is exactly what some operations staff think of when we tell them to submit a work request.
It means that they do not think that the work will be completed, or it will after it no longer matters to them.
What if you called the cable company and reported an issue? You would expect prompt service, and would expect that you would not have to chase them down to do the work correct? Maintenance is a service organization that enables the successful operation of the business.
The business shouldn’t have to chase us down or wonder if we will repair the equipment. [Read more…]
This is the second session from the Annual Apex Ridge Reliability Seminar held in Boston.
The session focus was how to best use specialized testing technique outputs as effective program inputs. There are simple steps for hooking the information from the test data into the correct program management decision points.
Very often opportunities are missed in programs by aligning testing outputs with incorrect program phases. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Rod Farrar (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The project management body of knowledge generally focuses on scope management, time management, and cost management. Risk management generally comes in at about 8th place out of the ten.
However, risk management is potentially the biggest part of the project management planning process.
Often organizations assign resources, dollars and time to project objectives to know exactly when the project is going to finish, how much it is going to cost and what resources are needed.
The problem with doing this is they have not identified risks. [Read more…]
The first words a maintainer will read when they pick up a work order is the job description. The job description must tell him enough information about the work so he can understand what to do.
Keywords: CMMS, computerized maintenance management system, planning, breakdown repair, corrective. [Read more…]
