Blog - Accendo Reliability

How Plant Wellness Way Sites Get Zero Failures

The prime role of Maintenance is to reduce operating risk. Maintenance serves a business well when its use leads to lower production costs than using other choices that could have been taken. Too many managers think that they must maintain plant and equipment. Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. Maintenance is expensive and, as far as it is safe, use less costly answers. But if you do choose to do maintenance, then you ought to pick an operation’s maintenance strategy mix based totally on its effectiveness in delivering the least operating costs for the least maintenance cost.

[Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell 1 Comment

Look Before you Leap – Part 3

Get it right on paper before attempting to computerize and automate.

The Work Management Process. One of the biggest uses of IIoT, ML, and AI in the industry (so far) is in the field of condition monitoring and forecasting times to failure. IIoT devices deployed on your equipment and systems, send exception signals (they use edge computing to filter out the vast majority of the data that merely tells you “all is well”) over some sort of network (usually wireless), then some sort of software interface produces a message for you to read (maybe triggers and work request, or sounds an alarm) and then act on.

[Read more…]

by Joe Anderson 1 Comment

Self-Accountability Part 1

In the last blog, we discussed why Self-Awareness is the starting point for any real change. If you aren’t able to honestly know where you are, you’ll never get on the proper path towards where you want to go. The next step in making forward progress is understanding how you got to where you are.

This is where self-accountability comes into the conversation.

Simply put, self-accountability is the understanding that you are the combined result of all of the decisions you make, and actions that you take.

[Read more…]

by Larry George 2 Comments

What Price Required Data?

The title was inspired by Rupert Miller’s report “What Price Kaplan Meier?” That report compares nonparametric vs. parametric reliability estimators from censored age-at-failure data. This article compares alternative, nonparametric estimators from different data: grouped, censored age-at-failure data vs. population ships and returns data required by generally accepted accounting principles. This article compares data storage and collection requirements and costs, and bias, precision, and information of nonparametric reliability estimators.

[Read more…]

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

From Maker to Manager, Part 2: Becoming a Lifelong Learner

The first and most important aptitude needed to move from a maker mentality to a management or leadership mentality is that of a lifelong learner.

Now, I’ve heard plenty of people say, “I learn something new every day.” And it’s a cute adage. But watching the History Channel or scrolling mindlessly through YouTube videos won’t likely produce a leadership mindset.

Instead, lifelong learning is an ongoing, self-motivated journey of acquiring new, particularly in-demand skills. Lifelong learners develop and employ strategies and plans to acquire new career skills. These plans may involve returning to university to acquire a new degree, but they certainly don’t have to.

[Read more…]

by Karl Burnett Leave a Comment

Reliability and Sabotage the CIA Way

During World War Two, the Office of Special Services (OSS), the forerunner of today’s Central Intelligence Agency, compiled a manual on how to ruin a factory’s output without explosives. Their main weapon was bad maintenance.

The manual described ways that transportation and industrial workers could do their jobs but intentionally damage their plant and organization. The main idea was to do their jobs poorly, in a way where bad workmanship was plausibly accidental. Some of the targets were boilers, housekeeping, turbines, fusing, motors, tools, building heat, fuel storage, and lubricating oil systems.

[Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

When Rules are Made to be Broken!

With twenty plus years of working with companies around the world, I’ve been witness to some incredible improvements. From a small company that was still working with paper work orders to large companies who struggled to make sense of their CMMS, the common thread for those who realized success was the discipline to implement and perform their RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) tasks.

What’s Wrong with the Term “Root Cause”?

There is great variation when it comes to a common understanding of the term ‘Root Cause Analysis’ or RCA.

In a previous, lengthy paper, I wrote an article entitled “The Stigma of RCA: What’s In a Name?“. It focused on common understandings (or misunderstandings) of what RCA means and then described the basic steps of any investigative occupation. I just left it up to the reader to determine if their ‘RCA’ approach had room for improvement.

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Acid Sparge and Acid Sparging

Acid Sparge And Acid Sparging. When you want to introduce acid directly into a liquid below its surface a sparge pipe is used. It is necessary to select materials that are compatible with the chemicals and the process. This article explains the issues to address when selecting the sparge pipe materials for injecting acid into a process reactor and what to consider when designing and installing the sparge pipe into such vessels or tanks.

[Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Cost Risk is a Major Reason for Project Failures

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

Studies show most projects fail due to poor management of known risks. The known risks on a project are:

Scope.
Schedule.
Cost.
Quality.

Generally speaking, cost problems are due to insufficient budget, poor budget control, and poor planning. How to minimize the cost (budget) risk on a project is addressed in this paper. The approach to do this is based on my 30 years of project and project risk management experience and knowledge.

[Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Look before you leap – part 2

Tech is needed, but do not focus only on the tool – implementation is key. For my musical aspirations that means the acquisition of a tool (the instrument), making sure it is set up correctly (tuning and positioning), investment in lessons and practice, using it regularly, and eventually, someone will tell me it sounds good. That’s my goal, and incidentally, I’m not there yet.

[Read more…]

by Larry George 1 Comment

Why didn’t you ask before running all those tests?

The title is a Statistician’s Lament. “Design of Experiments (DoE) is the design of any task that aims to describe or explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation.” [Wikipedia] Are you using DoE to design reliability tests? What do PH, GMDH, and |D|-optimality have to do with design of DoE of reliability tests?

[Read more…]

by Joe Anderson Leave a Comment

Self Awareness

The first step in any forward progress needs to be identifying the reality of where you are right now. If you’re trying to get to the North Pole, it doesn’t matter what map you’re given, if you don’t know where you’re starting.

This is a difficult conversation to have with yourself, but it is the foundation of a solid framework for success and is absolutely critical for any sustainable forward motion.

There are two types of self-awareness that need to be expanded on: Internal Self-Awareness and External Self-Awareness.

[Read more…]

by Dennis Craggs Leave a Comment

Lognormal Probability Plots

Introduction

In general, a statistical analysis of univariate data starts with a histogram. If the histogram doesn’t show a bell shape, the data probably does not follow a normal distribution. If the logarithm of the data plots as a normal histogram, then the data is lognormally distributed. Any statistical projections and parameter estimates are based on the normal distribution of the log of the data. This article focuses on the lognormal distribution and the lognormal probability plot.

[Read more…]

by Andrew Kelleher 1 Comment

How to Estimate the Stochastic Performance of your Production System in 5 Minutes

“Technical” reliability engineering is “quantitative”. This implies that the benefits of improvement measures (e.g.: design changes or alternative maintenance strategies) can be quantified in terms of system performance parameters. Refer, for example, Figure 1.

[Read more…]