Articles

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

RCM’s Hidden Power EXPOSED in Step 7

Hi everyone! In this video we use Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) principles. Yesterday, we poured the concrete floor for our metal building, and I learned that newly poured concrete faces a unique Failure Mode: Water evaporates too quickly during drying due to normal environmental conditions. This can lead to excessive cracks that compromise the strength of the structure.

In Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), Step 7—Default Strategies—helps us determine how to manage specific Failure Modes that require unique actions. In this case, the solution is to keep the concrete wet for at least three days, and luckily, Mother Nature is giving us a hand this weekend!

Remember, RCM isn’t just about routine Proactive Maintenance. Sometimes, your equipment may need special, one-time actions or other Default Strategies to manage particular Failure Modes.

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by Robert Allen Leave a Comment

Validation Ensures the Right Product Is Designed & Developed

Recall the overall objective of product development is to develop the ‘right product’ and to develop the “product right”. In previous articles, we defined validation as a continuous process throughout product development to establish complete and correct requirements. Consider the following illustration:

Valid requirements represent the voice of the customer and acceptability of the product. Product performance represents the “voice of” the design and process. Product performance outside of spec limits result in defects and rework (it is not the right product to meet customer needs).

Let’s start with the easiest (and arguably, most likely) scenario: A product requirement isn’t known with good specificity. There is pressure to deliver the product to the customer and the customer expects a ‘fully qualified” product. Some validation doesn’t start until testing in the customers environment. [Read more…]

by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

12: Controlled Introduction. Part 3

By Mike Freier

In the last blog, we discussed how to navigate the various mechanical tooling options and the advantages and trade-offs for volume production. We learned that considering factors such as lead times, cost, quality, and control over development processes is essential to selecting the most appropriate tooling option tailored to your specific product requirements.

Now, let’s continue to our next blog series, which will focus on business systems. Business systems are critical for supporting agile product realization, optimizing your processes, meeting regulatory compliance, and scaling your business. So let’s explore business systems strategies, flows, usage throughout the product life cycle, and tips for success.

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by nomtbf Leave a Comment

Enabling Great Reliability Decisions

Reliability is about making the right decision, each time.

Answering Questions

A common role during a first assignment as a reliability engineering is to answer a question or accomplish a task. It may help someone to make reliability decisions.

We may be asked, as I was, how long will this new product function during use? The director of engineering wanted to know if the new design was reliable enough to meet the customer’s requirements concerning reliability. He didn’t ask it that way, yet he did have a question that needed answering.

Sometimes we run a batch of tests, conduct failure analysis on field returns, or compare the durability to two vendor subsystems. In each case, there is a question to be answered.

A decision to be made by someone else. [Read more…]

by Semion Gengrinovich Leave a Comment

DfR – who are you?

Design for Reliability (DfR) is a critical aspect of the product development process, particularly for electromechanical products where the interplay between electrical and mechanical components can introduce complex failure modes. DfR is a systematic approach to ensuring that a product is reliable over its intended lifespan and under the conditions it will face during use. It involves a variety of techniques and practices aimed at identifying and mitigating potential failure points early in the design process.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Component Lifetime Health Strategy Based on Physics-of-Failure Science

Plant and Equipment Wellness (PEW) is a Physics of Failure based methodology for equipment failure prevention and defect elimination that results in the fewest activities, least resources and lowest expenditure to produce outstanding operational equipment reliability. PEW identifies the necessary business-wide processes and departmental actions an organisation needs to apply to get high plant and equipment availability. With high uptime comes more productivity, higher operating profits, and less capital expenditure.

As much as possible PEW uses simple techniques that can be done by shopfloor people. Most companies do not have large staffs of university trained maintenance and reliability professionals. They have knowledgeable and experienced maintenance practitioners that know their plant and equipment. PEW does not require specialist RAMS software that none but mathematicians can understand, that very few companies can afford to buy or contract, and requires assumptions about the future that are hopeful at best.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Can PM Communications Kill Communication

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

Video Killed the Radio Star…went the 1979 music video byThe Buggles. MTV used this as their first ever video in 1981, but despite the prophecy and MTV’s 40 ongoing years, radio stars aren’t dead. Radio revolutionised popular music, vinyl discs gave us today’s disc jockeys but even though technology evolves it demonstrates that the fittest will survive and not everything will be killed.

Compact cassette started to challenge vinyl in 1963. With the emergence of CDs in the mid ‘80’s, tapes eventually became old-hat. CDs were ousted by flash drives and today ubiquitous access to downloads overshadow almost everything…but vinyl and tapes aren’t altogether dead and buried. People can be branded dinosaurs but sometimes they are just nostalgic; the odd scratch can make music more of a memorable memory…as does listening to cricket or baseball or horse-racing on the radio!

But it’s not just music that’s been influenced by technology. Meetings have also been affected and, with the advent of COVID more and more of us are being exposed to on-line meetings and, of course presentations. But how effective are some presentations in blending audiovisual media, the spoken word and that most important ingredient, people.

[Read more…]

by Nancy Regan 1 Comment

Reliability Centered Maintenance Explained

Hi everyone! Today, we’re pouring the concrete floor for our metal building, and it’s a perfect analogy for Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). Just like this concrete forms a solid foundation that will support our structure for decades, RCM isn’t a quick fix or the program of the week. It’s about building a lasting foundation for your reliability efforts.

RCM takes time, the right people, and a commitment to the process to develop proactive maintenance tasks that truly make a difference. Build for the long term—invest in RCM and lay the groundwork for future reliability!

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD)

Dear friends, we are happy to release our video on this important topic of reliability block diagrams! In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe explains basics of series and parallel logic in RBDs. Hemant also explains application of Bayesian theorem and conditional probability to estimate reliability in special cases. Hope you find this useful and interesting!

[Read more…]

by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

Quality Objective 6: TECHNICAL RISK ANALYSIS

“Risk analysis is the art of turning uncertainty into actionable insight.” — Anonymous

In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for Technical Risk Analysis.

By definition, “risk analysis” is “the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and estimating the levels of risk involved in a situation, process, or system, in order to inform decision-making. [Read more…]

by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

11: Controlled Introduction, Part 2

Article by Mike Freier

In our last blog post, we delved into the journey of transitioning from engineering and beta units to high-volume production. We explored the crucial steps of choosing a reliable contract manufacturer (CM), negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement, and providing comprehensive documentation to support the product assembly process.

Now, let’s dive into our next blog piece, where we’ll uncover the world of mechanical tooling options that will support your product’s successful development and scale-up into high-volume production. We’ll be exploring 3D printing, soft tooling, and hard tooling, each offering unique advantages and trade-offs. By understanding these differences, you’ll be empowered to make better informed decisions and select the best strategy to support your business.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Field Failure: A Quality or Reliability Problem

When my car fails to start, as a customer I only know that my car didn’t start.

When my phone fails to turn on, or the dishwasher leaks, or the printer jams, I only know I’ve experienced an unwanted outcome.

I really do not care, at the moment, why the coffee maker is not producing my morning cup of coffee. My first thought is ‘now where do I find a cup of coffee?’ As a reliability engineer I’m naturally curious about what caused the failure and can I fix it immediately to get the morning cup brewing.

My thinking does not classify the failure or the source of the failure as a quality or reliability problem. Then why is it that some organizations split reported field failures thus? [Read more…]

by Semion Gengrinovich 1 Comment

Solution Implementation

When faced with recurring equipment failures, identifying the root cause is only half the battle. The real challenge lies in implementing an effective solution that addresses the issue while considering various stakeholder perspectives. In this article, we’ll explore a comprehensive approach to optimizing decision-making for equipment failure.

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Outstanding Maintenance and Reliability for Everyone

Maintenance And Reliability Like They Should Be Done!

What can a 25-year veteran of condition monitoring tell you about how to do better maintenance and get
better reliability?

First a little background. Max started his vibration analysis monitoring company back in the late 1970’s. He and his company developed expertise and technologies in condition monitoring over many years. They monitored and reported on a large range and number of machines, and worked for numerous companies. He and his people were the recognised experts in vibration monitoring and control. [Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Today’s Gremlin – Sweat the Asset

Today’s Gremlin – “sweat the asset”, truly believes that running the plant and equipment as hard as possible is good for business. He couldn’t be more wrong!

This gremlin wants to produce more in a short time and runs the equipment at or even over its design capacity. In one plant in a big mine I met one of these – a production superintendent who believed he was doing his best when he ran the plant hard and just avoided tripping breakers! Running that hard increases stress on the equipment, often ends up in overloading it, and causes it to fail prematurely.

[Read more…]