The Value of Reliability Conferences
Abstract
James and Fred discussing just how useful attending a conference can be.
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SOR 266 The Value of Reliability Conferences
3 Steps to Reduce the Meetings of a Maintenance Professional
How to Reduce Meeting and Spend More Time on Driving Plant Performance
Another great method of becoming overwhelmed with work as a Maintenance Professional is to fill our day full of meetings. Worse, those meetings usually do not provide any value to you, nor do you have any inputs into the meeting.
We all know the meetings we dread going to, not because they are long, or the people in them, but because we know that it is a complete waste of time and is preventing you from accomplishing important maintenance & reliability tasks.
Next to emails, meetings are one of the most common complaints as a time waster that prevents the department and business from moving forward. Some meetings are required, and some need you the Maintenance Professional, but not all.
Throughout the rest of the article, we will cover how the Maintenance Professional can identify, evaluate and end those ineffective meetings. [Read more…]
79 – How to Get the Most Out of Your PM Program with Ricky Smith
How to Get the Most Out of Your PM Program with Ricky Smith
There are a lot of companies that have their own Preventive Maintenance programs now and only a few of those are good at it. Even though they perform regular preventive maintenance but they never get the desired results. The equipment still fails frequently and they are annoyed by the fact that what they do never works. It is mostly because they do the same routine compliance over and over again without ever trying anything new or at the very least learn about new practices. This is where the Preventive Maintenance fails and companies bear the extra cost of maintenance.
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6 Steps a Maintenance Professional Can Do to Reduce Email
Eliminating the Clutter To Focus On The Important Tasks
A common complaint I hear and experience is as a maintenance professional, our inbox has exploded and grown rapidly with all the daily activities in a plant. All the emails are perceived to be important, but in reality, they are mostly urgent, or not important and not urgent.
Take a moment and think about how much time you spend reviewing and answer emails. Even those emails that do not need a response, need time to review and move or delete. I am guessing you spend at least an hour a day dealing with email. Now think about what you can do with that hour… you could move the department forward and achieve the department and business goals.
Thankfully there are 6 steps you can implement to reduce the number of emails you receive and reduce the amount of time it takes to manage the remaining email. [Read more…]
78 – Competency Development with Tara Holwagner
Competency Development with Tara Holwagner
Change Management is one of the most critical processes that companies go through and the management wants skilled workers to see company’s goals and objectives fulfilled in this case, desperately. Their standards are sometimes so high that even mediocre employees are sometimes let go. This is where competency comes in action. The management wants highly skilled employees and it is the responsibility of HR to recruit such multi-skilled workers who can perform under various and tough circumstances. That’s why companies today, have a different set of listed skills that they want their employees to be proficient in before they even consider them at all for a job.
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Becoming More Effective With Your Day
How To Save Time As A Maintenance Professional
You are running from one meeting to another, to a breakdown, to the storeroom and at the end of the day you stop and think. What did I really get done today? The day was busy, but did you accomplish what you wanted to or will make a difference in the long run?
The organization needs to focus on effective maintenance, and as a maintenance professional you need to be effective with your time. Only if you are effective with your time, can you drive the organization and the maintenance program forward. Being a maintenance professional it can be difficult to discern between the urgent and important and it is easy to get caught up in the rat race.
This will be a 4-part series on how a maintenance professional can free up time in their day and be more effective in driving their goals forward. [Read more…]
77 – Building a Business Case for Maintenance with Susan Lubell
Building a Business Case for Maintenance with Susan Lubell
While a host of factors influence profitability, maximizing your plant’s production output potential is arguably one of the facility’s greatest opportunities. An Asset Management, Reliability and Maintenance Strategic Plan can guide continuous improvement that’s aligned with bottom-line performance expectations for managing assets and people. This webcast will provide a framework approach for establishing your strategic asset management & reliability plan and the associated business case. Participants will gain a fundamental understanding of how to establish a baseline: “know where you are,” define where you’re going, who needs to be involved, how to measure the program’s progress and results, and what elements are essential for success.
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Speaking the Same Maintenance & Reliability Language
The Importance of Understanding the Terms and Definitions of the Maintenance & Reliability Language
Imagine being asked to discuss a breakdown during a production meeting. Only you are not aware of a breakdown, but production is claiming there was one and it could have been prevented by some Preventative Maintenance. You ask what equipment the breakdown was on and check the records. The records show there was a minor corrective action on the equipment last night, but not a breakdown.
After some discussion, the production manager explains that there was a leak, and the line had to be stopped to repair the leak. You know that a leak is not a breakdown, and will not impact production. The production manager saw a leak and assumed it was a breakdown. The end result was an unplanned outage lasting 30 minutes. [Read more…]
76 – Understanding Root Cause Analysis with Kevin Stewart
Understanding Root Cause Analysis with Kevin Stewart
It happens all the time that when certain companies can’t solve a problem, they just move on and overlook it. Sometimes, they successfully solve the problem but it keeps reappearing because they don’t have a proper process for solving that problem. That causes a lot of downtime and costs a lot in the long run. They spare all these resources for solving the problem quickly without even looking for the origin of the problem—the root cause—that they don’t even write the solutions applied in an understandable and applicable way for the next time, the same problem occurs.
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Reaching the Full Potential of Your CMMS
Getting Your Technicians to Use the CMMS as Part of the Daily Routine
The CMMS is often looked at as a tool for planners, engineers and managers, but that is only partially true. The CMMS is a powerful tool for the technicians as well. But getting the technicians to use the CMMS can be a difficult journey, and can blow up in your face if is it not rolled out and communicated properly. As with other best practices, having the technicians use the CMMS is not easy, but by doing so you can dramatically improve the performance of the operation. [Read more…]
75 – Advanced Scheduling with John Reeve
Advanced Scheduling with John Reeve
Every organization has a different meaning of schedule depending upon the work processes they have in place. Some people define it as an operational schedule for day-to-day activities and the others take it as a daily or weekly maintenance plan schedule. The other types are fully functional schedule process that involves critical path —the longest path in a schedule—method and the long-range plan that focuses on the surrounding system, work initiatives to be documented, and then executed in processes. When it comes to the basic structure of scheduling, the work break-down structure is at the top.
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Leverage the Data within Your CMMS
Unlock the Potential of Your CMMS by Accessing the Data Within
If you have properly selected and implemented your CMMS, you have the ability to truly make significant improvements in your operation. This is made a reality by using the data within the CMMS to make data driven decisions instead of intuition or feelings. This ensures the business resources are spent on the most important and strategic issues for the business.
In order to leverage the data within your CMMS, you have to ensure the data can be captured and reported easily. This is usually done during the implementation phase. [Read more…]
74 – Understanding Ultrasound with Allan Rienstra, Part 2
Understanding Ultrasound with Allan Rienstra, Part 2
When it comes to condition-based monitoring, no matter how hard you try, you can never have 100% failure protection. At some point and on some level—even at the smallest levels—something is going to go wrong and your assets are going to fail. The best choice is to always plan for those sudden failures to minimize their damage in the end. The only way to ensure that is to have a very good detection strategy in place. Ultrasound helps greatly in achieving this milestone by helping you monitor the health of your entire facilities, giving you a much better proactive approach.
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Plant the Seeds for Tomorrow: Implementing a CMMS
Most CMMS’ Fail at the Implementation Phase, Don’t Let This Be You
Most organizations only use 50% of their CMMS’s capabilities. This is for a variety of reasons, but one of the largest reasons, is that the CMMS was not setup, configured or implemented correctly. If the implementation of the CMMS was not done properly, the usability and information in the CMMS limits its potential.
How can you prevent the implementation from failing or delivering sub-par results? There are a few ways to ensure a successful CMMS implementation. This post will cover the 2 main ways to ensure a successful implementation. [Read more…]
73 – Understanding Ultrasound with Allan Rienstra, Part 1
Understanding Ultrasound with Allan Rienstra, Part 1
When it comes to condition-based monitoring, no matter how hard you try, you can never have 100% failure protection. At some point and on some level—even at the smallest levels—something is going to go wrong and your assets are going to fail. The best choice is to always plan for those sudden failures to minimize their damage in the end. The only way to ensure that is to have a very good detection strategy in place. Ultrasound helps greatly in achieving this milestone by helping you monitor the health of your entire facilities, giving you a much better proactive approach.
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