George Williams, Founder and CEO of ReliabilityX, discusses how Weekly Scheduling helps drive improvement in the efficiency of the maintenance organization! Have any questions? Drop a comment below!
[Read more…]Weekly Scheduling
Three Ways Great Facilitators Anticipate Trouble
Great facilitators anticipate trouble when guiding groups. We normally consider conflict between the participants as the most likely disruptor. However, facilitators should be prepared to overcome a handful of disruptor types in collaborative sessions. This article discusses technology misfires and provides three case examples with solutions.
Virtual Meetings Get Zoom-Bombed
We’ve been having monthly Pee Dee River Basin Council meetings for nearly two years. I serve as the facilitator of the 25-person group and Clemson’s University’s Tom Walker is the logistics coordinator. The meetings are in a hybrid format that allows the public and stakeholders to view the meetings virtually. The meeting was Zoom-bombed mid-way through the January 2024 meeting.
[Read more…]Futility of Using MTBF to Design an ALT
Futility of Using MTBF to Design an ALT
Let’s say we want to characterize the reliability performance of a vendor’s device. We’re considering including the device within our system, if and only if, it will survive 5 years reasonably well.
The vendor’s data sheet lists an MTBF value of 200,000 hours. A call to the vendor and search of their site doesn’t reveal any additional reliability information. MTBF is all we have.
We don’t trust it. Which is wise.
Now we want to run an ALT to estimate a time to failure distribution for the device. The intent is to use an acceleration model to accelerate the testing and a time to failure model to adjust to our various expected use conditions.
Given the device, a small interface module with a few buttons, electronics, a display and enclosure, and the data sheet with MTBF, how can we design a meaningful ALT? [Read more…]
Test Design for Component Life
Understanding FMEA Compensating Provisions
Risk is a function of how poorly a strategy will perform if the “wrong” scenario occurs. Michael Porter
The use of Compensating Provisions in FMEA is a key part of many FMEA standards. Regardless of what FMEA standard you are using, everyone who aspires to doing FMEAs properly should understand the role of mitigating the risk of very high severity.
Effective Safety Communications
Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Recently, I was talking to the Managing Director of a large recruiting firm for safety professionals in Toronto about the importance of communication skills.
It was very clear that safety leaders are just expected to be experts in the technical aspects of safety, but it’s the ability to communicate about safety that sets apart the great safety leaders from the mediocre.
[Read more…]Measuring and Improving Your Chance of Business Process Success
An endless Dilemma confronts every business. It is how to ensure that the activities we undertake will always produce the intended results.
Explosions, workplace deaths, harmful accidents, physical injuries, damaged goods, scrapped jobs, repeat work, manufacturing errors, operating mistakes, bad repairs, misunderstanding, wrong decisions, supplier miscommunication and poor delivery performance are all examples of the many unwanted troubles and problems caused by the Dilemma. Its impacts and effects have been written about for more than 6,000 years of recorded human history.
The Dilemma’s prevalence throughout the world indicates that human beings are a major contributor. A second major factor is business design: how your processes are configured and operate determines your degree of success in addressing the Dilemma. A third big cause is our training and education processes which have transferred the Dilemma all through businesses and across cultures for over 60 centuries. To stop the Dilemma affecting your company you can use what we have learnt about the universe, people and business processes during the last 100 years.
[Read more…]Reliability Testing Sampling Plans Part-2 (PRST and Fixed Length Plans)
Dear friends, Institute of Quality and Reliability is happy to release this video on Reliability Testing Sampling Plans. In this is Part-2 of the video, Hemant Urdhwareshe has explained the Probability Ratio Sequential Test (PRST) and Fixed Length plans from MIL-Handbook-781. These include illustrated explanation of the plans and applicability.
We are sure, viewers will find this video useful!
Earlier, we released part 1 of the video, in which Hemant explained the concepts of sampling risks and operating characteristics (OC) curves.
We also suggest viewers to see our related videos on Hazard Rate and related concepts for better understanding of this video.
[Read more…]“Springing” into action with RCM…
In this video we touch on all 7 steps of the RCM process as we introduce one of the most important aspects of the application of RCM…asking the people who really know!
[Read more…]No data = No Reliability Program? Fallacy!
I have often heard employees complain they have no data to initiate a proper Reliability Improvement Program. This is not always true. And to no fault of theirs. They just don’t know how to use what they already have in terms of records. If you are running an operation, you should at least have production records – i.e. how much you are producing on a daily basis. If you don’t have this, then maybe you should not be in business at all. This article looks at ways to initiate a Reliability Program using the Barringer Process Reliability (BPR) methodology. The greatest advantage of this methodology is that it only requires productions records as an input. That is how many units of production the plant produces on a daily basis. For example, the barrels of crude oil processed per day in a refinery. Or the hectoliters of beer brewed in a brewery daily.
[Read more…]Why make a Histogram graph?
Background:
A histogram – is an approximate representation of the distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson:
[Read more…]FINESSE Fishbone: The Seven Bones of FINESSE
FINESSE is a fishbone (cause and effect) diagram, a mnemonic, and a mental model. FINESSE stands for Frame, Illustrate, Noise Reduction, Empathy, Structure, Synergy, and Ethics. The FINESSE fishbone diagram is peer-reviewed and battle-tested. Most importantly, it works.
Systems Thinking
As applied to effective communication, systems thinking is the cornerstone of FINESSE.
A system is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, each of which can affect the behavior or outcomes of the whole. One defining property of a system is that it provides a function that none of the parts can accomplish by themselves. The corollary is that a system is not the sum of the parts but the product of their interactions. [Read more…]
MTBF of a Human
“What’s the MTBF of a Human?” That’s a bit of a strange question?
Guest post by Adam Bahret
I ask this question in my Reliability 101 course. Why ask such a weird question? I’ll tell you why. Because MTBF is the worst, most confusing, crappy metric used in the reliability discipline. Ok maybe that is a smidge harsh, it does have good intentions. But the amount of damage that has been done by the misunderstanding it has caused is horrendous.
MTBF stands for “Mean Time Between Failure.” It is the inverse of failure rate. An MTBF of 100,000 hrs/failure is a failure rate of 1/100,000 fails/hr = .00001 fails/hr. Those are numbers, what does that look like in operation? [Read more…]
Impact of Maintenance Strategy on Production Efficiency and Quality: A Comprehensive Analysis
In the intricate landscape of modern manufacturing, the efficiency and quality of the production system are paramount. These two pillars underpin a company’s competitiveness, profitability, and customer satisfaction. A critical factor influencing these metrics is the maintenance strategy employed. This research delves into the profound impact of maintenance strategies on production efficiency and quality, exploring various approaches, their implications, and real-world case studies.
Trouble Shooting or Shooting Troubled Projects
Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The project hasn’t been going too well; KPI’s indicate problems, staff are demotivated, the customer is complaining, the schedule is in double digit revisions, rework and resubmissions reflect quality, and you may be on your third or even fourth project manager, and cash is all but flowing. Phew…what will happen next?
Despite these symptoms the project is allowed to struggle on until, one day, one brave soul has the courage to admit that enough is enough! The self-help applications of Band Aids and a couple of paracetamols obviously haven’t worked. Making an appointment to see your local GP or even a trip to the emergency room at this juncture may also be a tad late. It’s time for a surgeon or, in project terms, a troubleshooter.
[Read more…]