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

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Keys to Reliability: Priority, Proaction and Focus

Keys to Reliability: Priority, Proaction and Focus

Anyone who knows me may also know about my father, Charles Latino, and his lifelong contribution to the field of reliability. My father was one of the pioneers of reliability in the 1950’s when nobody even knew what reliability really was. He pioneered and championed technologies like vibration analysis, infrared thermography and many others working for a Fortune 100 chemical company. Later he focused his attention on the cultural aspects of reliability and how organizations need to behave to make it all work.

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Why Systems Thinking Produces Effective Communication

Why Systems Thinking Produces Effective Communication

Have you ever heard of a communication system? You likely have, but you’ve probably not considered what that means. The good news for most of us is that communication is indeed a system. Even better, as technical professionals, we are blessed with the reality of what that means. The next time you serve as a trusted advisor, remember that effective communication requires systems thinking.

System Defined

A system is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, each of which can affect the behavior or outcomes of the whole. One defining property of a system is that it provides a function that none of the parts can accomplish by themselves. The corollary is that a system is not the sum of the parts but the product of their interactions.

Simple examples include the mechanical advantage gained from a system of pulleys or a gearbox. Sports teams or work units are examples of human systems. Systems are essential aspects of our everyday lives.

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Effects of Workplace Fear

Effects of Workplace Fear

In any organization, effective leadership is crucial to driving success and achieving goals. However, one often overlooked aspect of leadership is the role fear plays in an organization. Fear and its negative effects are present in every organization but rarely identified or measured. And when employees are afraid, they are less likely to take risks, share ideas, or give clear, honest assessments of risk. In this first article of a 3-part series, I’ll share the general effects that fear can have on your organization.  And in the follow-up articles, I’ll share what can be done to identify, measure and mitigate these fears.  In the end, employee fears stifles innovation, hampers collaboration, limits growth and prevents continuous improvement as detailed below.

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Reliability Engineering Applied to Maintenance (REAM)

Reliability Engineering Applied to Maintenance (REAM)

Article first posted at Conscious Reliability by James Reyes-Picknell, Jesus Sifonte, and team.

Suppliers and users of any product want that it performs well during its lifetime. That is, the item must perform within specified operating parameters during its life cycle.  The life cycle of an item comprises Concept, Research & Development, Production, Operation & Maintenance and, Disposal phases. Each phase carry costs its owner wishes to minimize. The idea is to realize the most value from the item when the whole life cycle costs and benefits are considered. In most cases, usually 80% of the total costs are incurred during the operation & maintenance phase of the life cycle. Machine failures cause plants to stop production causing accidents, economic impacts and reputation loses.  Asset components gradual degradation with age, operational/maintenance errors and design flaws all can cause assets or processes to fail. A failed asset is considered unreliable, which means that it is no longer able to fulfill its intended function.

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The Fallacy and Danger of Maintenance Audits

The Fallacy and Danger of Maintenance Audits

Maintenance Audits do not bring You Maintenance Success

The very best monitoring and measuring analysis you can do for your company’s maintenance success is to develop the distribution curves of your range of maintenance KPI’s.

At least they will be useful in the honest decision-making you need to do to continually become a better and better maintenance performer.

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Data Everywhere and Still Project Indecision

Data Everywhere and Still Project Indecision

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

“Water water everywhere, not a drop to drink” is the modern and well-known phraseology from the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”.  In essence this means that despite being surrounded by an abundance of something one cannot benefit from it.

In today’s Information Age we are surrounded by data.  It’s everywhere and often available at the touch of a button, or rather a screen.  Instant and easy access is demanded but despite computers and the internet the right data is not always so easily or readily found.  Data, and the right data is an essential ingredient for decision making.

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Elevating Excellence: Unveiling the Art of Maintenance, Repairs, and Operations Process Development

Elevating Excellence: Unveiling the Art of Maintenance, Repairs, and Operations Process Development

In the intricate web of industrial operations, maintenance, repairs, and operations (MRO) process development stands as the unsung hero, optimizing workflows, minimizing downtime, and ensuring the seamless continuity of production. It’s a craft that requires precision, strategic planning, and a knack for efficiency. Let’s embark on a journey to uncover the art of MRO process development and why it’s the lynchpin of high-quality operations.

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Key Teaching Principle #1: Understanding

As covered in the first article in this series, Principles of Effective Teaching, reliability engineers, FMEA team leaders, and other quality and reliability professionals are often called upon to teach the principles of reliability or FMEA. Whether you are a student who wants to enhance your learning experience, an instructor who wants to improve teaching results, or an engineer who wishes to convey knowledge to another person, this series will offer practical knowledge and advice.

Understand What You Teach

Key Teaching Principle # 1 is the instructor demonstrates a solid understanding of fundamentals, speaking directly to students, and not reading slides.

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato

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When is FMEA complete?

“Life calls not for perfection, but for completeness.”  Carl Jung

One of the common FMEA questions that comes up is: When is an FMEA complete? You’d think it would be simple, but many organizations and practitioners get it wrong.

In this article, I’ll begin with the purpose of Design and Process FMEAs, and from there, we’ll examine two very different approaches to completing an FMEA.

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Time to Update the Reliability Metric Book

Time to Update the Reliability Metric Book

Let’s think of this as a crowdsourced project. The first version of this book is a compilation of NoMTBF.com articles. It lays out why we do not want to use MTBF and what to do instead (to some extent).

With your input on success stories, how to make progress using better metrics, and input of examples, stories, case studies, etc., the next version of the book will be much better and much more practical.
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Mastering the Art of Empathy in Design Thinking

Mastering the Art of Empathy in Design Thinking

Welcome to the realm where reliability engineering meets product design—a landscape where innovation thrives on understanding and addressing customer pain points. In this guide, we will explore the intricate dance of empathy within the design thinking process, offering engineers and designers a roadmap to navigate the complexities of customer-centric problem-solving.

At the heart of the design thinking process lies the empathize phase—a journey that begins with a courageous act: wiping the slate clean of preconceived notions and biases. For seasoned professionals, this is akin to stepping into the unknown. Design thinking demands a reset—a departure from the comfort of accumulated solutions and a return to the essence of the problem.

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What is a Business Management System?

What is a Business Management System?

Why Build a Quality Management System?

A business management system needs a quality management system built to make customers happy.

Every company already has a business management system they use to deliver products or services. If you want to be a more profitable business, you need to continually create a better management system.

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It took a long time to understand why a business in the same market did better than other businesses. Every one thought it was due to better marketing, or access to more capital. But it was not. It was simply that one business had products that better suited customer needs. The best product always gains most market share and makes the biggest profits. Which is why a business management system needs a quality management system that improves their products.

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How Safe is Safe?

How Safe is Safe?

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

Just how safe is “safe”? Should working in a chemical plant have the same level of risk as skydiving (which kills about 40 people per year in the U.S.A Should working in a plant be as safe as driving your car? Or should it be as safe as flying in a plane, which is safer than driving a car by two orders of magnitude?

While the term FAR may be simple to understand and may represent a useful yardstick, many companies, especially in the U.S., are unwilling to put such targets in writing. Imagine walking into company XYZ’s plush world headquarters office and on the wall in the reception area is a sign that reads, “We at XYZ consider it tolerable to kill 4 people per 100-million-man hours.” The lawyers would have a field day! However, as we shall see, some organizations have established such quantified risk targets.

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