Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
In two recent articles we covered the management of a contract manufacturer (CM) value stream. We also covered NPI materials management within that model distinguishing NPI materials management from NPI project management.
Degradation testing for electromechanical components such as pumps, valves, and sensors involves a series of steps to identify wear and tear that could lead to system failure. The goal is to detect these signs of degradation early enough to replace the part and prevent system failure.
For pumps, degradation can be monitored by sensors. A study on gear pumps used an accelerated life test (ALT) to monitor the degradation state. The volumetric efficiency of the pumps was measured over time, and the wear clearances were recorded. As the wear gap increased, the flow rate gradually decreased, indicating wear degradation.
[Read more…]
The best way to help others understand and stop using MTBF is to engage them in a discussion. I get questions concerning MTBF or reliability a few times a week. I attempt to answer each and every one, plus adding a follow up question or two.
In person or online, ask and answer MTBF questions. You not only improve your understanding of MTBF and reliability, you improve your still at tell stories to help affect change across your industry. [Read more…]
Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.||
Jimmy Carter – U.S. President
Working It in VUCA time emphasizes Risk Based, Problem Solving (RBPS) and Risk Based, Decision Making (RBDM), which are the essence of self-management, execution, career resilience, and career agility.
Years ago, our mantra was risk management should be part of the tool box of all engineers. Why? Engineers live and work in the world of uncertainty and risk. Then things changed. In VUCA time, we say that risk is the entire toolkit and lens for ALL work and living in VUCA time. McKinsey, the global consulting firm, explains the connection between problem solving and decision making:
Figures 1 and 2 are examples of getting stuck trying to fix your current business when instead you ought to throw your troubles away and build a better business system.
This business is a renowned company in its home country. It is well respected and profitable enough. But it could easily be much wealthier. There are vast new fortunes sitting in the business, but they will never be seen by its owners and managers. They are totally focused each day on trying to make the existing business processes and system work properly. In reality, their operational processes need to be redesigned to remove the problems stopping them from delivering the organization’s purpose. [Read more…]
In this short video, I explain the key concept of Failure Modes—the specific causes of Functional Failures—and why they are the foundation of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM).
Just like not all dollar bills are created equal, Failure Modes vary in severity, and some can have a much greater impact on your equipment’s Reliability.
Learn why proactively identifying Failure Modes is critical to managing your assets effectively and how RCM can help you achieve the Reliability you need—without overpaying for it.
[Read more…]
What is the efficiency of your reliability estimators and failure forecasts? Compare naïve forecasts: guess, AFR, MTBF, or times series extrapolations such as ARIMA, GMDH, and AI, vs. forecasts based on reliability estimators. With grouped lifetime data, the Kaplan-Meier estimator is statistically efficient, under a condition often ignored! With lifetime data you could use maximum likelihood estimators like Weibull or Kaplan-Meier from (a sample of?) grouped lifetimes. Without lifetime data you could estimate reliability from population ships and returns counts from data required by GAAP! This article compares efficiency and cost of forecasts based on alternative data and estimators.
[Read more…]
Hello Friends! I am happy to release this video on Kaplan-Meier (KM) nonparametric method to estimate reliability. The KM method is used in situations when the data cannot be modelled using mathematical distributions such as Weibull, Lognormal etc. The KM method is popularly used in medical science to estimate survival probabilities of patients with diseases such as cancer, kidney diseases, etc.
[Read more…]
Teaching reliability occurs through textbooks, technical papers, peers, mentors, and courses. The many sources available tend to use MTBF as a primary vehicle to describe system reliability.
What has gone wrong with our education process? [Read more…]
The 5-Whys approach in product development enhances reliability by understanding failure modes. The 5-wys technique is a powerful tool for root cause analysis. Originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda and later popularized by Keiichi Ono.
The reality: Savings in work execution can easily be 30 to 60% of what you are spending today! That’s less labor, less overtime, less contracting, less consumption of parts and materials, less spend on delivery logistics, and less procurement activity. If your maintenance costs are in the range of 10 to 30% of your operating spend, you can save 3 to 18% of your operating labor costs by focusing on maintenance planning, scheduling and improving your proactive maintenance program.
The myth: many believe that planning and scheduling will solve their maintenance productivity problems, so they focus efforts to improve them. But despite their efforts, results don’t change. Time and again, we see reports showing relatively high levels of planned work but low schedule compliance, and production outputs don’t change. What’s going on?
[Read more…]
Change to Component Health Monitoring for Massive Equipment Reliability Improvement. Many condition monitoring (CM) techniques require that your machines and equipment reach a near failed state before they detect the symptoms of failure. This guarantees that you will have many machines in your operation always near-to-failure. Outstanding reliability instead requires you to create the conditions of long-lasting machinery health and to ensure those conditions are always present. As a consequence of having a machine health improvement focus you proactively cause equipment wellness in your operation and thereby create huge reliability growth.
[Read more…]
Interest in risk culture has been growing since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. It is a topic that is getting more and more spotlight.
Regulatory authorities are demanding that financial institutions improve their ‘risk culture’. Workplace health and safety authorities are urging organisations to improve their ‘safety culture’. Everyone is talking about having a ‘customer experience culture’. And the list goes on.
[Read more…]
In this session, we will delve into essential strategies for gaining clarity in the midst of reactive maintenance challenges.
[Read more…]
Why Do Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Analyses Fail?
Hi everyone, I’m Nancy Regan, and in today’s video, I’m coming to you from the ancient ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico! Standing in front of the “ball game” court, I’m reminded of one of the biggest reasons why Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analyses often fail.
Just like trying to learn everything about this historic site in a few minutes, many organizations attempt to implement RCM after reading a book or taking a quick course, without truly understanding the process. In this video, I explain why having a deep understanding of RCM is crucial to carrying out a successful analysis—and how going into too little or too much detail can cause problems.
[Read more…]