Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Planning and Implementing a risk management framework is an admirable accomplishment. Now make sure it is running well and will do so into the future.
As with any process, there will be opportunities to make improvements. By monitoring and reviewing your program you will find what is working well and what is not. [Read more…]
With the advent of ISO 31000 and other ISO standards suggesting organizational risk management practices, your organization may have or soon will implement a risk management plan. Reliability of your products, systems, or assets is an element of the organization’s risk profile.
As reliability professionals, your knowledge and skills are a natural fit within any risk management plan. You may focus exclusively on the reliability performance-related risks You may find the skills and tools to identify and mitigate risks play an important role beyond just reliability performance.
Large and small organizations face risks. The lines of communication differ as do the context, culture, and management practices between any two organization. The implementation of a risk management plan has to fit your organization.
Here are few general guidelines and practical considerations when implementing your organization’s risk management plan. [Read more…]
The process to design and deliver a reliable product involves identifying risks. Taking action to understand or mitigate those risks involves much of the day to day work of reliability engineering.
Taking action to set expectations and improve decisions involves change. Change of understanding, change of specifications, change of expectations, change of designs, processes, and results.
It is the changes, big and small, that occur that achieve the desired results for the customer and organization.
You also know that not every suggestion is greeted warmly. Not every proposal is funded. Not every recommendation is accepted. [Read more…]
The uncertainty concerning the future performance of a product or system is a risk to the customer and supplying organization. A product that fails too often or in an unsafe manner may require repair, replacement, or a recall.
A product’s performance including its reliability performance reflects on the organization that designs, builds, and sells the product. A poor reliability performance is no longer a risk to that individual product, rather it is a risk to the product line and organization as well.
Reliability professionals have long been involved with identifying and mitigating risks. The increased emphasis on enterprise risk management through standards such as ISO 31000 require reliability professionals to consider the larger risk management framework and how reliability related risks fit within the larger context. [Read more…]
We facilitate. As reliability professionals, we often lead teams to identify risk. We help cross-functional teams find and implement solutions. We bring people together and ease their ability to communicate clearly with each other.
Whether a leader or participant we have a role to achieve the desired goals. Our ability to facilitate enables us to work with others to get things done. Understanding how to facilitate well permits us to add value when leading or participating on a team. [Read more…]
The new CRE body of knowledge goes into effect in January 2018. With the additions, deletions, and changes to topics, it attempts to reflect what reliability engineering does daily. Let’s closely examine the new 2018 BOK and what it means. [Read more…]
The risk management framework in ISO 31000 provides a flexible approach to create the right program for your organization. The document doesn’t provide advice or wisdom, so you have to supply that yourself.
The details of the risk management program or specific framework in your organization includes policies, procedures, analysis, and reporting, yet it also has to work within the context of your organization.
Based on the work of Greg Hutchins in ISO 31000: Enterprise Risk Management here are four considerations to supplement your wisdom as you design and implement your program. [Read more…]
Condition monitoring can help to predict failures and anticipate to them, however it doesn’t always work like this — in the best case scenario we might be able to identify early phase failures or incipient stage of damage mechanisms or failure mechanisms, but if we use it in the wrong manner it will just be a reactive tool.
More than 80% of the failure modes could be randomly patterned. Although performance, vibration, temperature or lube oil condition are being monitored, many of the failures are still not directly predicted by only these conditions. [Read more…]
As anyone with a hand in running a household knows, it’s important to keep a stockpile of key items. You certainly don’t want to find out the hard way that you’re on your last square of toilet paper. But in the case of a facility like a power plant, a missing spare part could be more than just a nuisance—it could be downright expensive. [Read more…]
There are two instances when you should implement preventative action. First, once a failure occurs and you would like to avoid similar future failures. Second, before a failure occurs, yet an undesired failure mechanism is likely to occur.
Like corrective action there is a wide range of possible preventative actions. The selection of the right actions requires considering customer expectations, business and legal factors, along with the technical and economic feasibility. [Read more…]
Not every request we make is fulfilled. Not every assignment is accomplished. Not every task we assign is completed.
Why is that? Possibly, the lack of a complete request.
It may be the person we made the request to was incapable or decided to ignore us. Or, more likely, it may be our request was not clear.
An unclear request increases the chance the desired outcome will not occur. An unclear request permits misunderstanding and confusion to guide the path toward an unsatisfactory result.
Understanding the essential elements of making a complete request improves the chance the desired outcome will occur.
Let’s examine the 7 elements one at a time. [Read more…]
Every organization, business, and individual faces a relentless barrage of risk. Some risks are minor, while others may overwhelm.
We all deal with risk, manage risk, in our own way. For more than just yourself the management of risk is taking on a new level of organization and importance.
Risk exists whether or not we choose to plan, prepare, and mitigate.
The decisions concerning product reliability, and associated risks, require senior management (including the board of directors) engagement and commitment. While there is a wide array of business and societal risks the management team must address, the reliability performance of products and systems presents potentially catastrophic risks to any organization. [Read more…]
Tim interviews Chris concerning the academic work concerning decision making being built into autonomous vehicles. [Read more…]
Once reliability risks have been identified and analyzed, we have to do something.
Well, not really.
If the risk is acceptable to the stakeholders, then we can simply continue with the current plan and monitor or any new risks or changes in our understanding of the existing risks.
Risk mitigation is a ‘system, process, or investment to control the likelihood or consequence of a risk.’ This is according to the glossary of risk terms in ISO 31000: Enterprise Risk Management. In many cases, the risk is unacceptable and will require mitigation. [Read more…]
Customers want the benefits created by your product. They want the time savings, the reduced yield loss, they want simplicity, coolness, speed, etc.
Customers buy your product to solve a problem, they do not buy it to simply enjoy the features. The features have to do something of value. They have to provide a benefit.
If your product fails, the feature doesn’t work. Customers do not realize the benefit they expected.
In short, your customer wants your product to work as expected. When asked a customer will tell you they do not want to have product failures. [Read more…]
