Equipment experts are the untapped gold in any organization.
They know where the vulnerabilities lay, and they know what to do about them. Don’t waste this vital resource.
RCM memorializes the expertise and experience of equipment experts.
Articles
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Time Series Forecasts for Service Parts?
Do you want easy demand forecasts or do you want to learn and use the reliabilities of service parts and make demand forecasts and distribution estimates, without sample uncertainty? Would you like to do something about service parts’ reliability? Would you like demand forecast distributions so you could set inventory policies to meet fill rate or service level requirements? Without sample uncertainty? Without life data? Don’t believe people who write that it can’t be done!
Self Ownership Part 4
The focus on attention to detail is one of the most critical portions of self-ownership. Everyone can walk by trash, but when the leader does it, it’s sending a message. The focus on attention to detail, especially in contracts, is best illustrated by the famous rock group, Van Halen.
Rock stars are able to put seemingly insane requests into what they need from the venues they perform at, and Van Halen was no different. After all, they’re the reason venues can charge hundreds of dollars per seat, they can choose to be picky.
Physical Explosions: LNG Rapid Phase Transitions (RPT)
LNG spilled onto water sometime undergoes a rapid phase transition (RPT) or physical explosion creating localized overpressures.
Such physical explosions are also observed when water contacts molten metal or hot lava (steam explosions)
Why Managing Dissenting Views is Critical for Good Group Decision Making
Majority voting and consensus decision making are two distinct approaches to making decisions in group environments, each with its own characteristics and implications. Consensus decision-making is an alternative to debate and passage of proposals that can be approved through a majority vote. It does not emphasize the goal of the full agreement but instead focuses on acceptance or “living with it.” Choosing the right method for the context, and more importantly, managing the dissenting view, is important in making good group decisions.
Introduction to the ISO 31K Risk Management Framework
Guest Post by Peter Holtmann (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
This article is the first in our risk management series. The series will be taking a look at the risk management guidelines under the ISO 31000 Standard to help you better understand them and how they relate to your own risk management activities. In doing so we’ll be walking through the core aspects of the Standard and giving you practical guidance on how to implement it.
In this particular article, we’ll be introducing you to the ISO 31000 Standards, the guiding principles, and outlining the risk management framework.
Using Predictive Maintenance in a Plant Wellness Paradigm
Density Curves (With a Reliability Engineering Example)
Today we look at a couple different ways to visualize the distribution of your data.
Understanding the distribution of your data can be useful for engineers undertaking various tasks. The fact of the matter is that there are many different ways in which one can get an idea of the distribution of the data they’re interested in, one of which is density curves.
[Read more…]Should The Cop Ticket Fred? Perils Of Performance-Based Regulations
When you are driving on a highway, usually there is a speed limit. If you exceed this limit, a cop can give you a ticket.
In Houston, most highways have a speed limit of 65-70 miles per hour…although most drivers appear to assume it implies “90-mph is okay”.
Let us say the city of Houston were to remove the speed restrictions.
Instead they put forward the mandate “drive safely”.
Sell Solutions Before There’s a Problem
Guest Post by Daniel Burrus (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
So long as there are products and services offered by an organization, there will be the existence of a sales force.
The basic fundamentals of selling are simple: a customer expresses a desire for something and, in turn, someone sells them a product or service to address that desire. Essentially, sales are how an organization converts a “want” into a “need.” While these fundamentals are timeless, they are rooted in a reactive process.
Extreme Wear on the Back Plate of Centrifugal Pumps
Why is extreme wear occurring on the backing plate behind the impellers of these centrifugal pumps used for irrigation pumping service?
Engineering investigations into the causes of wear, erosion and metal loss on the back-plates behind the impellers of two year old centrifugal pumps pumping water about an irrigation system
3 Ways to Do RCM
There are two main ingredients for a successful reliability centered maintenance (RCM) analysis:
- First-hand knowledge of the asset and its operating environment.
- Strong understanding of the RCM process and its associated principles.
Mid-1700s: A Habit of 3-year Preventive Maintenance
By 1792, six Royal Navy dockyards employed about 1500 workers each. The dockyards had a wider variety of technical specialties than was found in any other manufacturing enterprise. The dockyards “were some of the largest manufactories in Europe and dwarfed almost all private industries.” (Morriss) The dockyards built new ships, but maintaining ships was just as important. The Royal Navy’s dockyards constituted one of the largest industrial maintenance organizations in the world…and their only peer organizations in terms of the scale of maintenance management were the dockyards of other superpower navies.
Worst Disasters
Generally speaking, 5-6 things have to go wrong for an incident to occur. Furthermore, these events or failures have to occur in a certain sequence.
The characteristics of mega disasters is that 5-6 events with fairly low probabilities of occurrence line up.
Why Fist to Five is a Powerful Decision-Making Technique
Fist to five voting is a simple and effective way to gather group feedback or to gauge consensus in a meeting or discussion. In this method, participants are asked to rate their level of support for an idea or proposal on a scale of 1 to 5, using their fingers. However, fist to five is a decision-making technique that should be described in the project charter and agreed upon by all participants. Ample time should be allowed between the initial poll and the final vote for negotiation and agreement to occur. [Read more…]
