Blog - Accendo Reliability

10 Things A Reliability Engineer Can Do Today To Improve Reliability

20 years ago, I began my first assignment as a Reliability Engineer at Eastman Kodak’s Photo Chemical facility in Rochester, New York. Now, I understand that I just lost several people who began reading this article by using the words “photo” and “chemical” in the same sentence, but 20 years ago, most photography was still a chemical process.

When I started in this job, the position of Reliability Engineer was a new thing to our company. As a result, I got little direction regarding what a Reliability Engineer should or could do to improve reliability in the area I was assigned. 20 years later, I would like to share a list of the 10 things any Reliability Engineer can do to improve reliability at their site. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Taguchi’s 3 Fundamental Concepts

Taguchi may be best known for the variation of design of experiments that bear his name. Yet the impact of his work is felt across the product life cycle and all of the quality field.

Building on Deming’s observations that 85% of poor quality is due to faulty processes and only 15% due to the worker, Taguchi focused on creating robust processes.

A robust system is one that tolerates the daily and seasonal variations of the environment, machine wear, and equipment part-to-part variation, etc. A robust system operating in the range of real world conditions. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

What Is A Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?

Identifying the Right KPI for Your Business is Critical to Managing the Performance of the Business (Part 1)

“What gets measured, gets done” and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are critical to measuring the performance of the organization and business. So what specifically is a KPI? According to the The Professionals Guide To Maintenance And Reliability Terminology, a KPI is a vital indicator which is used to evaluate process performance. KPIs are used to represents a measure (or set of metrics) focusing on those aspects of organizational performance that are the most critical for the current and future success of the organization. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Stress Margin Design with perfect precision, and some parts blowing up

This video clip looks like a disaster but is actually a visualization of precision reliability engineering………. right after a disaster . [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Risk Management and Fear

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

Risk Management is like vitamins; we know it is good for us, but we don’t always want to take it.

Why? Human nature is to avoid discomfort and unpleasantness. What does this have to do with risk? What is the real impact of consequence of a Risk? Why do we not want to face it? If you think about it, it is the underlying of risk – it is Fear. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Equipment Identification Tags Save Time

Equipment Identification tags save time. Identifying equipment for operators and tradesmen will save time, reduce errors and promote accurate record keeping. Equipment identification involves putting a unique number and a unique written description onto a machine.

Keywords: CMMS, computerised maintenance management system, planning, breakdown repair, reporting faults, equipment tags, catalogue. [Read more…]

by Kevin Stewart 2 Comments

Introduction to the Essential Characteristics of an RCA Program

This is the first in a nine-part series of articles. This first one will lay out what I think are essential characteristics of an RCA program. The other articles will follow up on each of the items in some detail.

[Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 1 Comment

Quantify Your Improvements with Maintenance Planning & Scheduling

Being able to communicate the improvements with Maintenance Planning & Scheduling with finance and senior leaders can be difficult. The maintenance team sees a high PM Compliance, or more work being complete, but what does that mean for the business in tangible benefits? This is where the communication between maintenance and finance breakdown. By being able to identify and link the maintenance improvements to financial returns, maintenance will be able to generate support for current and future projects. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 3 Comments

Experiences with Magnetic Drive Pumps

Experiences with magnetic (magdrive) pumps. Magnetic drive pumps come in three varieties – canned motor pumps, all metal pumps and plastic lined metal pumps. They are sealless and cannot leak into the environment. Long, repair- free service life depends on recognising the limitations of these pumps. This article covers issues with using direct mounted, lined magdrive pumps experienced ‘in the field’.

Keyword: separation liners, chemical compatibility, sediment, particulate. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Risk Decisions and Human Nature

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

One area that does not receive much emphasis in risk management is the human factor. In risk assessments, risk events, likelihoods and consequences, vulnerabilities are the usual focus. People are viewed as ‘weak links’ in risk prevention, but what about risk mitigation? Your risk planning depends on people to respond when an event occurs. How good is their risk decision-making under stress? There is the weak link.

In 1996, IEEE published a book on “Probabilistic Risk Assessment and Management for Engineers and Scientists” by Kumamoto and Henley[1]. This book is about using probability to assess reliability and safety risks in an industrial environment. The book introduces some interesting concepts, such as risk perception and ‘Human Reliability’. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret 7 Comments

Weibull explained (a bit)

Many of our customers (internal/external) trust us when we say that a Weibull analysis is the best approach to understanding what the data set is telling us. We then take their data set, do something mysterious where no one can see us, and then present these accurate predictions as to what is going to happen with a given population of the product at some future date. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

You Are a Reliability Leader, Now Make a Difference

Your Reliability Engineering Leadership Role

Leadership is not a position or title within an organization. It is an attitude.

You’ve seen the internet meme’s about the difference between leadership and management. There is a difference and while not everyone is going to be in top management, everyone can (and should) be a leader.

As a reliability professional, you are conveniently looked to for leadership. You are expected to use your knowledge and skill to solve problems. To help teams solve problems. To improve the reliability performance of your system and across your industry. [Read more…]

by Kevin Stewart 1 Comment

The Bridge to Self Improvement

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with too much to do? I imagine most of us have struggled with time management at one time or another. There are just too many things on our plate, and they never go away.

Some may attribute this burden to their life, or perhaps they are inefficient time managers, or something else. Regardless, I doubt many enjoy the feeling or the situation.

If only we could walk across the bridge to self improvement and be enlightened.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Perfect Strength and Stress Concepts

Recently Peter Stuttard asked if I knew of a reference for the perfect strength and perfect stress concepts. I didn’t and asked for a bit of explanation of the phrases.

Here is his reply (via Linkedin, btw a great tool to get and stay in touch) posted with permission with minor formatting edits.

To learn more about Peter check out his Linkedin profile.

Fred

Thanks for responding so quickly, the concepts of Perfect Strength and Perfect Stress are related to your discussion re Parts Count and Parts Stress predictions and reading this on your web site prompted me to ask you about them. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

The Top 5 Tips to Implementing a Successful Maintenance Planning & Scheduling Process

Implementing a Maintenance Planning & Scheduling process can be trying, difficult and downright frustrating. How would you like to dramatically reduce the stress involved and see results quicker? By utilizing these 5 tips, you will be able to build a robust, highly efficient and effective process with reduced effort. [Read more…]