Do you ever mutter to yourself: “Reliability Centered Maintenance, FMEA, FMECA, and CBM? I’m so confused! Where do I even start?” If so, don’t skip this one!
[Read more…]Are RCM, FMEA, FMECA, and CBM Independent Processes?
Articles
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Ancient Japanese Text Contained A Warning For 2011 Fukushima Disaster
Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku – is an ancient Japanese text compiled in 901.
It talks about an earthquake and Tsunami that occurred in 869:
“Then the sea began roaring like a big thunderstorm. The sea surface rose up and the huge waves attached the land”
People died in landslide or were crushed by the collapse of their homes.
[Read more…]Two Books Help Reliability Engineers Communicate and Collaborate
These two books help technical professionals improve their communication and collaboration skills. Employers seek soft skills across the many market sectors to complement the technical skills they assume are present. These two groundbreaking books provide the fuel to propel your career.
Facilitating with FINESSE
The results of our work often depend on the quality of the facilitation. Facilitating with FINESSE addresses ways to improve interactive, peer-to-peer communication when working in teams.
The book provides the techniques to facilitate ten different technical applications from good to great. [Read more…]
What Interests My Boss Fascinates Me
In this episode, we will discuss tips for applying leadership support to promote a reliability culture in your plant.
by Ken Latino
[Read more…]Using RAM models for Criticality Analysis – Advantages and Limitations
Introduction to RAM Models and Criticality Analysis
Building a Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) model can provide numerous benefits to an Asset Management program. This includes conducting a Criticality Analysis. Criticality Analysis involves ranking assets based on their potential risk to the organization. It considers risk categories such as Production Impact, Safety, Environment, and Reputation, amongst others. The category list can vary and is a reflection of the organization’s structure. Organizations generally have a finite financial pool allocated to preserving asset function. A Criticality Analysis helps optimize the allocation of resources to each asset according to its importance in the system network. Ultimately this helps maximize revenue, minimize spend and maintain the organization’s license to operate.
[Read more…]First Impressions
Note: This first article in the NoMTBF campaign was published on April 1st, 2009. Thus, we’ve been at this and making progress for a long time and come a long was since starting the NoMTBF campaign. I am looking forward to your comments, contributions, and suggestions.
Fred
At first, MTBF seems like a commonly used and valuable measure of reliability. Trained as a statistician and understanding the use of the expected value that MTBF represented, I thought, ‘Cool, this is useful.’
Then, the discussions with engineers, technical sales folks, and other professionals about reliability using MTBF started. And the awareness that not everyone, and at times it seems very few, truly understood MTBF and how to properly use the measure.
[Read more…]SAE JA1011 Standard
Article first posted at Conscious Reliability by James Reyes-Picknell, Jesus Sifonte, and team.
Evaluation Criteria for Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Processes
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the accepted definitions for standard is: “something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model, for example.” In our case, a standard comprises a document or sets of documents providing requirements, specifications, guidelines, or characteristics that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes, and services fit their purpose. There exist international standards on quality (ISO 9,000), risk (ISO 31,000), environment (ISO 14,000), energy (ISO 50,000), management and many other fields providing information and guidance on the practices, methods, and processes designed by groups of highly qualified international experts. Most technical field professionals utilize international standards to base their practice on trusted mathematically and/or scientifically proven methods. Trial and error are no longer acceptable out of the laboratory anymore today. But, lessons learned from its practice in conjunction with regretful real-life incidents and accidents provide knowledge on their risks, mitigation, and prevention. Most asset and maintenance management best practices and techniques are standard-driven, meaning they have been carefully defined and established. The SAE JA1011 Standard on Evaluation Criteria for Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Process has an exciting background, including disappointing and successful stories before its principles were conceived and eventually incorporated into an international engineering standard.
[Read more…]Is ERM the Solution to Climate Change?
Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The 2022 Global Risk Report is the 17th risk assessment report. The preface to the report notes: “The 17th edition of the Global Risk Report identifies tensions that will results from diverging trajectories and approaches within and between countries and then examines the risk that could arise from such tensions.” (1)
The results of the survey have substantive implications as the above notes. These implications go beyond diverging trajectories and approaches, to something more fundamental. That is whether the survey has any probative value. This piece discusses the results of the survey. It also examines its probative value.
[Read more…]Adopt New Technology, and Hasten the Adoption of New Technology
Users of the Plant Wellness Way EAM methodology use accuracy-controlled procedures to turn their company into an Accuracy Controlled Enterprise: a quality driven, “learning organization” effectively using useful technologies.
Time Series vs. Actuarial Forecasts?
Time series forecasts are easy to make and data are available. They’re like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror. A survey listed 31 forecasting software programs: none actuarial [Yurkewicz]. Actuarial failure forecasts are less biased and are more precise than time series failure forecasts, because actuarial failure forecasts use age-specific failure rates. How much better?
The example in this article shows the 5% to 95% time series confidence interval width is 44.78 vs. the nonparametric actuarial Kaplan-Meier actuarial forecast width of 12.63, from grouped failure data, and actuarial forecast width of 15.45, from ships and returns counts.
[Read more…]Life Data Analysis of Complete Data Using Minitab
In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe discusses how to analyse complete data of failures to identify distribution, identify distribution parameters, estimate reliability at a specified time using Minitab (version 19) software. The file used in the video can be downloaded here: Reliability Data.xls.zip.
[Read more…]Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices: Block Diagrams
Free Safety And Reliability Resources
A listing of online tools and resources that may interest safety or reliability professionals. Always check how well the tools work before using for serious decisions.
[Read more…]The #1 Thing That Changes Your Life and Propels Your Career
Effective communication is the one thing that makes your life better, more fulfilling, and more rewarding. That is equally true in life and your career. Give the soft skills and communication, in particular, the same emphasis that you give your hard skills. Soft skills are the difference makers.
My Religion is the Most Important
I agree with technical professionals who counter with this observation. We then agree that one of the first things they teach you in any church is how to pray.
My Family is the Most Important
Again, I agree with technical professionals who cite this one. Then we agree that every family has a fair number of poor relationships that could be improved if we all communicated more effectively.
[Read more…]Top 3 CMMS Blunders to Avoid – A Reliability Engineering Perspective
CMMS overview
A proper Computer Maintenance Management System (CMMS) setup can make a world of difference in an organization’s asset management journey. Conversely, a substandard setup can be a living hell for Reliability Engineers like myself and other analysts. This article highlights some practices to avoid in order to gain the most out of your CMMS in the long run. The examples given are based on my own experience in industry. There could be many more learnings out there. Reader comments and suggestions are most welcome as this will benefit the entire Maintenance and Reliability community.
[Read more…]