Blog - Accendo Reliability

Maintenance Planning– Make your Planner successful!

The efficient use of men, materials and external resources requires coordination and preparation.

When a job starts everything needed to do the job must be at hand and must be right to use. The maintenance planner does the preparation required prior to the start of a job.

The planner’s focus is to prepare everything needed to execute a job through to its successful completion and have it ready and on-hand before the job starts.

How well the planning job is done directly affects how efficiently the men do the work and how long it takes for it to be done.

Keywords: job scheduling, breakdown work. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Cover Your Assets and Plausible Deniability

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

In an earlier post [1] we looked whether ‘plausible deniability’ was now a dead strategy in the face of enterprise risk management (ERM) and the likely impact of the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) guidance [2] regarding disclosure obligations relating to operational and cybersecurity risks and cyber incidents. The SEC noted that “a number of disclosure requirements may impose an obligation on registrants to disclose such risks and incidents. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Inputs to Consider When Setting Tolerances

Technical drawings and electrical specifications often include tolerances.

The range of values allowed for a particular aspect of the part.

Reliability engineers do not set the tolerances, yet we should both understand and influence them.

A critical element of design for reliability is the creation of a robust product.

It is not just robust in the end use, your product should also be robust to the variability that will occur during manufacturing and transportation. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Are You Struggling with Reliability & Maintenance?

If you are like me, then you have at least once found yourself struggling with Reliability & Maintenance(R&M) in a plant. Whether you are trying to implement planning & scheduling, manage spare parts or develop effective PMs, it can be frustrating. Not to mention how difficult it is to tie all of the different pieces together and making it stick.

The intention of this blog and website is to provide information on not only the different parts of a R&M program, but how they all tie together. This is what separates the profitable manufacturers from the ones that close. Preventing these closures is what High Performance Reliability and myself want to do. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Fixing Audit Findings

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

The audit is finished, the exit meeting conducted and the audit report has hit your desk. As discussed, there should be no surprises, there should be correctly categorized findings, and specific examples.

Now you have 3, 6, 9 or 12 months in which to fix them.

If you have findings that have to be addressed within 3 months, then you have got a nonconformity or a major corrective action (of course the names are different for every certification service provider). [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Making a World-Class Asset Management Organization?

The very best asset managers have maintenance under control.

Their entire organization’s systems and methods are tuned to preventing unplanned stoppages. They only do that which has first been thought through and prepared for.

But most importantly they understand the key factor to excellent asset care and work toward it continuously and energetically.

Keywords: preventative maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance, RCM, total productive maintenance, TPM. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

The Basics of Vibration and Shock

Did you shake a wrapped gift as a child?

Sometimes the rattling sound may indicate the hidden contents. A sweater from Grandma would make a muffled sound, while a new Lego set would rustle the many parts.

Your customers may not shake the package to guess its contents, yet your product will experience vibration and shock.

The environments of assembly, transpiration, use, maintenance, etc all include shock and vibration inputs to your product. The operation of your product may include producing vibration and shock loading across the product.

Understanding the basics of vibration and shock will assist you to design your product to operate as expected in the noisy, shaky world.

The rattling about your product experiences is just one of the many environmental and use factors. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 5 Comments

Starting a Career in Reliability Engineering

Reliability engineers all have a start.

A point zero.

The transition point from pursuing something else, or nothing at all, then we begin our journey as a reliability engineering professional.

Getting started can be difficult and at times overwhelming.

Then you find Accendo Reliability and there is a lot of great content, maybe too much. So, this short article has the intent to create a starting point for you.

Plus, for those well along in their career, a request.

What is your advice to those just starting their career? My plan is to gather the advice from this community and assembly a start here guide just for those just starting their career.

Leave a comment below with your words of wisdom. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Guiding Programs by Product Goals

A term that I use when describing product goals that are tangible and drive program decisions is “Product Asset.”

A Product Asset is “a fundamental attribute of a product that can be characterized as a quantitative measurable goal.”

The five Product Assets that I commonly select are the following:

technology features
reliability/quality
time to market
product cost
development program cost (considered an anchor asset)

[Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 2 Comments

Preheating Welds

Weld preheating is the purposeful application of heat to warm metal to a desired temperature prior to welding.

Preheating slows down the cooling rate of the weld and gives the metal more time to form a good microstructure, release internal stresses and dissipate hydrogen from the weld.

Keywords: thickness, weld puddle, cooling rate, temperature. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Requirements Development and Risk Management

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

One of the keys to a successful project is having a set of requirements that are well defined and stable. We’ve all worked on projects where a lack of defined and controlled requirements has led to scope creep which result in schedule delays.

The requirements development process must also include mitigations for the risks identified in the Risk Management Plan. To accomplish this the initial risk assessment must be completed before the requirements development process begins. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 9 Comments

Introduction to Thermal Cycling Life Testing

Materials expand or contract with temperature change. Water expands as it freezes, whereas steel contracts as it cools.

This motion can limit the life of your system.

Materials and mechanical engineers include the expected motion into their designs, well the better engineers do.

Even centuries ago, craftsmen used expansion slots or features when attaching wooden table tops to their frames.

The motion due to temperature change will occur and has the potential to create immense strain within your product. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

5 Ways You Know a Reliability Program is Working

When your reliability program is working well, it may be difficult to recognize the benefits incurred.

Likewise, when the program is not working, it is obvious.

As you work to improve your program, keep in mind you may need to include elements to ensure your efforts remain visible.

I don’t mean staging field issues that you can solve quickly, rather that you are able to show the impact you and your program make to the organization. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret 1 Comment

ESS and HASS

Two of the most common acronyms used regarding manufacturing screening processes are ESS and HASS.

ESS stands for “Environmental Stress Screening” and HASS stands for “Highly Accelerated Stress Screening.” [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Human Factors and Risk

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

There is an aviation old joke that in the future the airplane will have a crew of two, a pilot and a dog. The pilot to feed the dog and the dog to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.

I started this article after reading about United Airlines plan to bring in all 12,000 of its pilots for additional training outside of their normal training schedule. This was being done as a result of several incidents that raised concerns about pilot response to failures. [Read more…]