James Kovacevic — Thought Leader

Author of Maintenance and Reliability articles, ebooks, and host of Rooted in Reliability, co-host on Speaking of Reliability.

This author's archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.

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Who Is Responsible For Reliability? Everyone!

Why Your Operators Need To Be Part Of Your Reliability Program

You drive your car (almost) every day, you will immediately notice a new noise, vibration, or feel to the car. Once you detect this you would report the issue to your mechanic (or if yourself and do the repair), and he would investigate the issue. The repair would be made and the car returned to you.

This same approach is what should be happening in your plant. The operators of the plant equipment, operate the equipment every day and know the equipment. Any changes or variation in the equipment or process would be noticed by them and should be reported to the maintenance department.

Based on this approach that we use every day with our cars, why is it that in many plants the operators do not notify maintenance of changes? Or the notifications go unused or not acted on? [Read more…]

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116 – Repair vs Replace Decision Making with Susan Lubell

Repair vs Replace Decision Making with Susan Lubell

Without questions, organizations in the world need their assets to be optimal and to run efficiently. They can’t afford downtime because of the production targets they have to achieve. That is why they have to make a smart decision. They can either refurbish the assets or replace them. But the question is, when is refurbishing preferred over replacement? With refurbishment, you check the life-cycle cost of an asset. Sometimes, companies make small repairs because it’s relatively inexpensive and they can easily get the asset up and running quickly versus replacing the asset which may take time in lieu of internal approval process and purchase lead time.
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SOR 338 Should We Track Calendar Time, Operating Time, or Throughput

Should We Track Calendar Time, Operating Time, or Throughput

Abstract

James and Fred discussing the range of measures in order to set reliability goals and track reliability performance given that calendar time is not always useful.
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What Can You Do With Data?

A Question & Answer Period with Fred Schenkelberg and James Kovacevic on what can be done with your data and analysis.

Data and the analyses that use the data can be tricky to manage at best, let along extremely difficult.

In this last post of the series on using the maintenance data you have, Fred and James will answer many of the common questions asked about data and the analyses. [Read more…]

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115 – Ultrasound-Assisted Lubrication with Adrian Messer

Ultrasound-Assisted Lubrication with Adrian Messer

Proper lubrication is one of the most important things to consider to keep the equipment up and running. When the equipment is over-lubricated or under-lubricated, it can lead to premature failures and increased maintenance costs. So how do we know how much lubrication a machine or a parts needs? What tools can be used for a precise amount of lubrication?
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The WHAT and, More Importantly, The WHY of the Weibull Analysis

How to conduct a Weibull analysis and the questions the analysis will generate.

Every failure is part of a puzzle. The equipment we are maintaining is trying to communicate with use with each and every failure.
Often the message is not obvious.

There is the immediate failure. And, if we’re paying attention we can sort out the root cause of the failure along with replacing or repairing the damaged parts. Sometimes though the damage is caused by another issue with the system.

Something was hidden. [Read more…]

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114 – Electrical Safety Survey Review with Tom Wilk

Electrical Safety Survey Review with Tom Wilk

The usage of electricity in doing the day-to-day tasks in the workplace is a common practice. The safety of the workers and maintaining the electrical equipment is just as important as the maintenance of other systems. There are electrical safety programs in place but still, there are a lot of fatalities in the workplace because of exposure to sensitive electricity-based tools. There are safety manuals in place but there are other reasons that these safety issues occur all the time in the maintenance and reliability industry. This may be due to lack of training or with electrical safety programs not in compliance with the work environment—region, country, and other regulatory compliances.
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Using the Maintenance Data You Already Have

Leverage the existing data in your CMMS to make sustainable improvements to your maintenance program

Let’s face it, your technicians have been entering data into the CMMS for years, but you haven’t been able to use it to make improvements. Is it because the data isn’t codified or it doesn’t have the right data points? Generally, this is how most maintenance managers will view their data, but it is incorrect. The CMMS does have data that you can use almost immediately. [Read more…]

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113 – Asset Management with David Albrice

Asset Management with David Albrice

When there is unplanned downtime and repeating failures in the plant, that means you are not managing your assets in the right way. Asset management can be used to enhance the value of a piece of equipment. So what is asset management? It is simply a process to make sure you get the value that you want from your machines. The idea is not just to get value in terms of money. It is about making sure that your equipment is in the optimum conditions and is running when you really need it to. This is something you can’t do without asset management.
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How to Sustain the Culture Change

The key to keeping a culture change from going back

One of the reasons that culture changes fail to change and stay that way is because there is nothing put in place to sustain it. When there is no plan to sustain the change, it will be a flavor of the week and revert back to the old ways. This is the final installment of a series on culture change and if you haven’t already, please go to the first post and start there. [Read more…]

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112 – Root Cause Analysis with Shon Isenhour

Root Cause Analysis with Shon Isenhour

When you deal with machines on daily basis, machine failures are bound to happen. But what if these failures keep occurring? Wouldn’t you get tired and want a solution for these problems? This is why root cause analysis is so important in an organization. The basic idea of RCA is to know the reason behind the occurrence of a failure and then finding a solution to reduce a risk—certain or uncertain—in a cost-effective manner. You can’t just rely on a single approach all the time because it might not be applicable to your problem.
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The Actions To Accelerate Your Culture Change

Hit the ground running and embed the culture change to achieve maximum results

Your culture change has a plan, it has the right people in place, and you are ready to roll it out. Your change stands a better chance of success than most change programs as you have a plan with the right people. Sometimes changes fail because the change is not embedded quickly, people lose interest and go back to their old ways. If you haven’t already, please start at the beginning of the series with the warning signs that you need a culture change. [Read more…]

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111 – Ultrasound Condition Monitoring with Adrian Messer

Ultrasound Condition Monitoring with Adrian Messer

There are certain things in the reliability and maintenance industry that are made easier with the help of technology. Condition monitoring is one of those processes that is effective due to the use of ultrasound technology. Usually, the ultrasound is used to clean different machine parts using high frequency powered waves. The type that is used in the maintenance industry makes it far more efficient when it comes to listening to the sound of the machines. They are constantly monitoring a machine to listen for any weird sounds that are the indication of a future failure.
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Getting the Right People on the Bus and In the Right Seats

A guide to ensuring your department will support your reliability culture

People are the heart of any maintenance reliability program and they have the ability to make the program succeed or fail. This is why managing the change to reliability culture is critical. We covered a few of the key pieces to change management in the previous post. But sometimes, not matter what change management technique(s) you use, the change may not be successful. [Read more…]

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110 – Laws of Leadership with Bill Leahy

Laws of Leadership with Bill Leahy

Leadership is a very strong concept. It is unique to everyone. So how do you understand leadership? Well, different people have a different understanding of the word ‘leadership’. This is because we have our own unique perspectives. Every person has his own skills and is working in different fields of everyday life. These people can be leaders in their own way. It doesn’t matter if you are working in the office or just leading a teenage life. Once you realize that you are a leader, then you start showing abilities of one. But there are some laws that you can use to govern better leadership.
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