Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
About a year ago, I wrote an article about the 6 signs of a reliable plant that got warm reception and a few nice comments. More interesting however was a private message I received from a Reliability Engineer who asked if I had a list of signs that a plant was in chaos and needed a wake up call to turn things around. I responded to the note, drafted a title page and a list of some of the sure signs a plant is in trouble.
This is the resulting article. [Read more…]
Coaching in Business Problem Solving – Radio Interview
This radio interview combines the principles of business problem solving and basketball coaching. [Read more…]
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…]
What you will learn from this article.
Agitated vessels and tanks are common throughout the process and chemical industries. A properly sized agitator with correct proportions to suit the tank will deliver well-mixed product. A correctly sized gearbox with well-chosen bearings and bearing arrangements will need only regular lubrication while giving years of trouble free service. [Read more…]
In the risk-neutral world, all business and government continuity planning would be risk-balanced. However, in reality, risks, threats, hazards and their consequences change depending on an organizations exposure, sensitivities to impact and other factors. For instance, a natural disaster, can occur without much warning and can have direct and indirect impact on an organization. Complicating the Business Continuity Planners life is a simple fact, events have unforeseen consequences that can rarely be planned for. [Read more…]
In a previous article we compared and contrasted the role & responsibility for a scrum master vs. project manager/core team leader (CTL/PM).
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the scrum product owner role and compare it with the product development team’s “opportunity champion”.
We’ll the boat saga continues. As I shared she has turned out to be a cruel mistress. Enticing and a thrill at times and then without warnign I get the cold shoulder. So I am going to take a well known reliability strategy with her. Hopefully we can just be in love again with all of our interactions being nothing but bliss. it’s the oldest reliability trick in the book. “Less is More” The less parts you have the less there is to break.
The more I have gone through this fuel injection system the more amazed I am it has worked this long. The main power relays on the motor are automotive i.e. not for a very wet and humid application. Then !!!(this is infuriating) they are mounted upside down so the seams for the protective cover are on top. This is a boat motor compartment. It has water in the bottom that get’s heated up when the motor runs. Then cools off, condensates after use. Over and over again. That is basically a humidity cycling chamber.
Introduction
When planning a test on a continuous variable, the most common question was “How many should I test”? Later, when the test results were available, the questions were “What is the confidence?” or “How precise was the result?” This article focuses on planning the measurements of a continuous variable and analyzing the test results.
Communication is essential for coaching and team success. This framework has helped us work with players in the short time of a basketball camp. A similar approach is used when working with business clients. [Read more…]
What do you think is the #1 business risk in 2018 according to the World Economic Forum?
Guess again? [Read more…]
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…]
What you will learn from this article.
The sole purpose of using process control in, say, the making of beer, is to detect what is happening during manufacture and to decide if something needs to be changed to insure the beer meets the necessary specification. The key words are ‘to detect’, ‘to decide’, ‘to change’ and ‘to meet specification’. A control loop can do all these things automatically. [Read more…]
In a previous article, we explored agile product development with a focus on early product validation.
In this article, we’ll compare and contrast the role & responsibility for scrum masters vs. project managers/core team leaders.
Let’s start with (all) the basic scrum roles:
Some incredible things seem to happen as you get older. When I was in my early twenties I had very little patience for small children. They were always making noise making a mess and demanding attention. I had all kinds of patience for work related things, if we were having a meeting on what caused our chemical reaction times to drift more than a full standard deviation outside the control limits, you had 100% of my attention. [Read more…]
There is a huge fear around the globe that:
The Machines Are Coming!
How much is this reality, fear, or over hype?
Upcoming Machine and robot wars are posed this way.
The machines are fully functional robots that can out-think and out-do all humans. Where has this fantasy been created? TV. Movies. Books. And frankly most media make a robot a villain who kills and takes over humanity.
Now, they are seen as job killers and we all need to be afraid.
So, what’s going on? This is: Part myth. Part reality. [Read more…]
