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The Maintenance Career of Diarist Samual Pepys

The Maintenance Career of Diarist Samual Pepys

Samuel Pepys is famous for keeping a diary from 1660 to 1669. He recorded details of everyday life in London during the Restoration period, including firsthand accounts of the plague and the Great Fire of London. Pepys spent most of his career managing the Royal Navy’s logistics and shipbuilding programs during the second, third, and fourth Dutch wars. From 1673 to 1679, he was the Secretary for the Admiralty. He fought bureaucratic waste and endemic bribery while building the so-called “Thirty New Ships” of 1677. After infighting between political factions, Pepys resigned in 1679 to face trial for corruption himself.

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Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

Having worked in manufacturing quality for the great majority of my career, with a few tentacles into the field of reliability, I’ve considered many comparisons between the two fields, with of course, my unconscious biases favoring quality. One interesting comparison, for instance, is between job postings for similar positions in these related fields.

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Decision-Making Under Certainty, Uncertainty, and Risk

Decision-Making Under Certainty, Uncertainty, and Risk

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

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the two relevant dimensions for decision-making under certainty, risk, and uncertainty that form the certainty-uncertainty spectrum are:

  1. Degree of certainty – It ranges from close to certainty to far from certainty.
  2. Level of predictability and control – It moves from close to predictability and control to far from predictability and control.

Based on these two dimensions, in this Part2, we will be looking at the three conditions along the certainty-uncertainty spectrum that you will face when making decisions under certainty, risk, and uncertainty.

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How Industrial Operations use Plant Wellness Way to get World-class Production

How Industrial Operations use Plant Wellness Way to get World-class Production

An Executive Report for CEO’s, Executives, and Senior managers in industry and manufacturing.

Utmost operating profits, lowest maintenance costs, world class reliability, & outstandingly effective physical asset management the Plant Wellness Way

Let a Plant Wellness Way EAM System-of-Reliability halve your Annual Maintenance Costs

In the Plant Wellness Way (PWW) you do nothing to your business until you have total confidence that what you do, and how it will be done, will be extraordinarily successful.

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Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Reliability?

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Reliability?

My first task at Apple Computer was to recommend the warranty duration for the Apple II computer. Apple didn’t have a warranty! So, I looked at competitors’ warranties and recommended the same, one year. I wish I had known Apple’s computers’ and service parts’ reliabilities before that recommendation; I would have used actuarial forecasts of warranty returns to compare alternative warranties. Apple’s hardware warranty is still one year. Is that equitable to Apple, its customers, and society?

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Self-Leadership Part 2

Self-Leadership Part 2

Self-leadership is the constant step of focusing on forward motion, and taking out your compass to make sure you’re always still heading north. Constant action in the wrong direction can be just as harmful as standing still, sometimes worse.

This is a constant three step process. As your journey keeps moving forward, you need to keep checking your sails to make sure the wind is moving you in any direction: this is self-leadership.

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How To Use CMMS To Support FRACAS Methodology

How To Use CMMS To Support FRACAS Methodology

Organizations can face a wide range of failure problems, ranging from technical to process failures. These common failures include equipment breakdowns, product failure, quality issues, and environmental incidents. These failures typically require a more systematic approach. This involves failure tracking and corrective measures implementation — in comes the FRACAS methodology. 

The FRACAS process tracks and manages failures and problems in products or systems. Almost every industry uses this approach. The goal of FRACAS is to uncover the cause of errors and take corrective action to avoid similar occurrences in the future. The process of FRACAS involves failure documentation, conducting failure examination, corrective measures implementation, and continually seeking ways to enhance the process. [Read more…]

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First Steps with Data

First Steps with Data

Once word got out that I was taking graduate-level courses in statistics, I dreaded the knock on the door. Colleagues, some of which I knew and others from some far reach of the company, would ask if I could take a look at their data. I didn’t learn the necessary first steps with a stack of data in class.

I’ve lost count of the number of data sets I’ve reviewed and analyzed. I know there are important considerations and questions before creating the first plot. Let’s review the essential first steps you should take when presented with data.

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The #1 Thing Facilitators and Technical Experts Get Wrong About Qualitative Assessments

The #1 Thing Facilitators and Technical Experts Get Wrong About Qualitative Assessments

A facilitator leads a group of participants to solutions that are created, understood, and accepted by all. Effective facilitation cannot be achieved without the role of people and social sciences. Understanding Likert scales as a viable technique is necessary to improve qualitative assessments, including risk assessments, condition assessments, and prioritization.

Likert scales were originally developed by Rensis Likert, who was concerned with measuring psychological attitudes and wished to do this in a “scientific” way. Specifically, he sought a method to produce attitude measures that could reasonably be interpreted as measurements on a proper metric scale, such as a thermometer.

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Complex Processes Become your Product (not your Actual Product).

Complex Processes Become your Product (not your Actual Product).

I was recently asked by a product design engineer why their organization struggles with reliability even though they have a very ‘robust’ design process that seemingly has lots of different ‘good’ reliability engineering activities embedded in it. And when I say ‘good’ reliability engineering activities, I mean activities that have (in the past) shown to have a really good impact on reliability.

When I looked at some of this engineer’s processes as summarized by a ‘process flow chart,’ the reason his organization struggled with making reliable products was quite obvious. 

The process was so complex that it became the ‘product.’ 

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Do you have a PHB (Pointy haired boss)?

Do you have a PHB (Pointy haired boss)?

Do you have a PHB, “Pointy haired boss”? If you’ve seen any Dilbert comics, then you know who I mean. Dilbert is an engineer too. The PHB is oblivious to the reality around him, only interested in how things look, and impossible to get to with Dilbert’s good ideas.

The comic is popular, especially among engineers, for a good reason. Scott Adams (Dilbert’s creator) knew that the technical world is full of frustration because of the relationship that engineers have with their own PHBs. Technicians, supervisors, superintendents, and managers in maintenance and reliability almost always have technical backgrounds. I’d hazard to say that we’ve all had PHBs at some point.

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How to Create Project Performance Curves

How to Create Project Performance Curves

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

Two schedule tools are widely used for the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) around the world to manage projects. The first one is Microsoft Project (MS Project). The second one is Primavera P6.  They are both very good. Primavera P6 is an Oracle product originally designed for the construction industry. MS Project is simpler and easier to learn based on my experience. It also costs less than Primavera P6. DOD uses MS Project and typically requires it for use on government contracts. Other industries use one or the other depending on the size and complexity of the project.

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