Reliability in the Business Case

The challenges of keeping reliability at the resource and schedule negotiating table mid-program can be greatly helped by a solid effort to connect it to the business case when the product program is created.

It’s the ambiguity of how reliability makes the company money that makes the case in live negotiation so difficult. Everyone knows that reliability affects sales, marketing, warranty expense, future development. But how do you compare that to the urgency of time to market or cost point? If you, as the reliability representative, can point to a specific quantitative connection made to the business case for the product you have one.

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by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

The Two Faces of RCM

I had a conference call this morning with some potential clients in regard to rolling out a RCM Blitz™ effort. The sad thing about Reliability Centered Maintenance is the reputation the tool has acquired over the last 40 years has one of two faces.

The sad, tragic and more popular face is that if the Resource Consuming Monster. The reputation that RCM is too detailed, that it takes too long, and that by the time you finish your analysis there are no recourses and there is no money left for implementation. According to a survey conducted on ReliabilityWeb.com nearly 70% of all RCM implementations fail, with statistics like this, it is a wonder the tool still exists. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Job Safety on Hazardous & Dangerous Work

See www.jsaprograms.com for innovation in hazard control.

Doing a job safely is no accident! Like all good outcomes safety is a result of good planning. As the Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “In all things success depends on previous preparation and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.” If you want safe work it needs to be planned as part of the job.

The other important fact about safety is that it is a personal responsibility. It is up to you to do the job safely. There is not a manager or supervisor in the world that wants to go to prison or be fined for a death or maiming because of his negligence. That means people in-charge want jobs done safely too. All they ask is that the safety procedures and practices used on the job be the least that are adequate while still meeting all the safety issues. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

What Does Eloquent Design Mean to You?

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

What Does Eloquent Design Mean to You?

Eloquence has many definitions primarily applied to speaking and writing. One definition is the art or practice of using fluent, forceful, and persuasive discourse. Over the ages, authors have variously described eloquence as “words sweetly placed and modestly directed” (William Shakespeare), “a painting of thought” (Blaise Pascal), “the poetry of prose” (William Cullen Bryant), “the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy” (Ralph Waldo Emerson), and “the art of clothing the thought in apt, significant and sounding words” (John Dryden).

I think many of these words describing eloquence can also be applied to product design. Some examples and rational are presented below. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Detail Necessary in a Risk Management Plan

A risk management plan has to meet your organizations needs as the organization identifies, manages, and mitigates potential and actual risks. The ISO 31000 framework does not detail how an organization should plan or what elements are required for an effective plan.

This short article outlines a few details that may comprise a starting point as you build a risk management plan within your organization. Or, the suggestions here may help you review and improve your existing plan. [Read more…]

by Dennis Craggs Leave a Comment

Process Capability V – Variation Reduction

Introduction

In the prior article, Process Capability IV, vehicle wheel toe alignment showed excessive variation. Because the vehicle assembly process is very long and involves many steps, the toe alignment problem required brainstorm which serial production steps, factors, and levels could be responsible for the variation. The most likely process steps were examined and the problem area identified as a wheel alignment machine that needed maintenance and calibration.

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by Kirk Gray 2 Comments

Will reparable designs help reduce electronics waste?

Another one bites the dust!

Apparently, my lovely wife is one of the best at finding stress testing limits of kitchen blenders, or we are unlucky at getting blenders that had some latent defect. She has discovered the destruct limit of 3 blenders within months of use. She does not do in the formal HALT methodology, as they break in what most would consider normal use conditions. It may have been a valid HALT evaluation if she had started with soft or easy to blend materials, starting with o ice or nuts and measured the time to reach its destruct limit. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Road Rally

So I wrote about how Mercedes has crummy reliability per Consumer Reports. I then threw a zinger at the end of the article saying I do have a Mercedes in the stable. So here is moment in time with her before we put her away for the winter last year. You will see the love/hate bloom and a benchmark with a 40 year old Japanese car. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

Reliability Amnesia!

The condition that occurs when an Engineer, Supervisor, or Manager who once had responsibility for the reliability of your assets gets promoted or transferred to the operations side of the group.

Symptoms of Reliability Amnesia

1. Ignoring information from Condition Based Technologies that clearly show a major component is in the process of failing. The subject may be overheard saying something like “I can’t afford to stop the line now, if we do I won’t make my production goals.” [Read more…]

by Perry Parendo Leave a Comment

How to Find What You Weren’t Looking For!

Another name for this could be – Creativity in Design of Experiments. But our title seems to fit better. With DOE being a “structured” approach, how can it possibly provide creativity? In our New Product Development work, we have used DOE to experience creative breakthroughs. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Centrifugal Pump Life Extension – The Volute

What readers will learn from this article.

Pump volute problems and fixes.
Pump set-up and piping connection issues to get right.
Process conditions that will cause problems.
What to watch for with pump shaft designs.

[Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

PDCA is Not Best Practice

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

PDCA is Not Best Practice

There is a gaggle of Management Consultants pushing the 20th century mantra of Good Management Practice as a panacea to all the ill of today’s business environment. The key plank in most of these methodologies is that old chestnut “the PDCA cycle” for Continuous Improvement. If your consultant wears this as a badge, run a mile

Business Management is no longer just about Financial Accounting or Office Administration. And Best Practice is not just someone’s vague opinion. Leading businesses from around the world have, thru the international standards organization, put down a comprehensive set of guidelines for a broad range of Systems Management areas covering the lifecycle management Best Practices. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

McNemar Test

The McNemar test is a nonparametric statistical test to compare dichotomous (unique) results of paired data.

If you are comparing survey results (favorable/unfavorable) for a group of potential customers given two ad campaigns, or evaluating the performance of two vendors in a set of prototype units, or determining if a maintenance procedure is effective for a set of equipment, this test permits the detection of changes.

The McNemar test is similar to the χ² test. The McNemar only works with a two by two table, where the χ² test works with larger tables. The χ² test is checking for independence, while the McNemar test is looking for consistency in results.

Let’s examine an example where a group of people are surveyed about a prototype design, before and after a presentation. [Read more…]

by Ash Norton 2 Comments

Engineering Manager – The Sasquatch of Leadership?

“[They] aren’t just hard to find — they don’t exist”

Think this was written about the elusive Sasquatch? Loch Ness monster, maybe? What about the abominable snowman?

Nope, nope, and nope. This was referring to good engineering managers.

In his opinion piece, Juan Pablo Dellarroquelle argues that engineers that are good at their jobs have little incentive to move into a managerial role because they are already influential leaders in an individual contributor role.

Alternatively, he argues, engineers who are weak technically are promoted to managers because of their organizational skills.

While this may be the case in some circumstances, in general – I disagree. [Read more…]

by Robert Allen Leave a Comment