Blog - Accendo Reliability

1653-1774 The First Work Orders in the Royal Navy

A Bureaucratic Basis for Maintenance Management

In 1653, “An Act for Constituting Commissioners for Ordering And Managing the Affairs of the Admiralty And Navy” established the responsibilities of the Admiralty and Commissioners of the Navy. The Commissioners were to make policy for building, fitting out, “repairing and preserving,” and “sale and disposal of old and unserviceable ships and vessels.” Another duty was to conduct a survey (i.e. an inventory) of the nation’s ships and naval stores, an element carried over from Monson’s Tracts in 1624.

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by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Nitrogen Asphyxiation Hazards

We all know that air is mostly nitrogen…79% to be precise. What may not be a common knoweldge is that colorless odorless Nitrogen has led to asphyxiation and fatalities and is a risk particularly for personnel working in confined spaces and personnel utilizing breathing air systems.

According to the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) research there were 80 nitrogen asphyxiation fatalities between 1992-2002. This translates to one nitrogen asphyxiation death every seven weeks. Approximately, 10% of fatalities were due to attempts to rescue person in confined spaces.

Prelical Practical Reliability Overview

This video provides a summary of the Prelical Solution’s Practical Reliability process. For more information, contact us at info@prelical.com or visit our website at prelical.com.

This video will provide a practical framework for implementing a reliability process at your company. Tips on how to develop an effective asset strategy, execution of that strategy and how to evaluate the results of the strategy in the field.

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by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Helpful Summary Tips on Qualitative Assessments and Facilitation

Qualitative assessments are used in various applications, including asset management, risk management, human reliability analysis, and customer surveys. The usefulness of any qualitative assessment is a function of design, analysis, and administration. Facilitation plays a pivotal role.

Facilitators should understand the strengths and weaknesses of the qualitative assessments we facilitate and design. Qualitative assessments measure the opinions, attitudes, knowledge, perceived behaviors, observations, beliefs, and experiences of individuals who use a system the most. The correct understanding is fundamental as we lead participants to solutions that are created, understood, and accepted by all. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Teamwork: Trust, Tolerance, and Leadership

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

Teams, they are everywhere; sports teams, project teams, political parties, rock bands, military units, the list goes on. The team isn’t just about the people in the limelight it’s also about the backroom boys and girls who provide logistical, technical, administrative, and sometime moral support to the front men and women. Even the lone competitor or the one-man-band needs some support; everybody needs somebody sometime.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Screw Conveyor Auger Shaft Drive End Break

How operational loads break the drive shaft of a horizontal screw conveyor auger

Questions and queries asked following a screw feeder shaft breakage on a 15m long fertiliser dust transfer feed conveyor

If you have rotating shafts breaking at the drive-end of the auger shaft you may have a combination of bending and torsional fatigue. You are welcome to read the series of emails and responses below to a screw conveyor auger drive end failure.

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by Larry George Leave a Comment

Reliability of Breast Implants

Dear Larry

Thank you for your data request for breast implant data and apologies for the delay in responding. The data available is:

The number of women receiving implants, by year, by major manufacturer
Number of Explants: All Manufacturers (inc. Others and Unknown Brands)

My colleagues have been copied into this email to show your request has been actioned. I hope this is helpful. [Read more…]

by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Safety Rap

Take a look at the following video from Dominion Power:

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by Gabor Szabo Leave a Comment

Small Multiples for Characterization

In the last edition of R for Engineering, we learned how to draw small multiple plots in R and harness the power of comparison. We went from a busy graph to being able to use ggplot’s faceting functions to create a small multiples plot. If you need a recap, here’s a link to the last edition.

That is to say, nature’s laws are causal; they reveal themselves by comparison and difference, and they operate at every multi-variate space-time point.
– Edward Tufte

Small multiples have many uses in engineering, but the one I personally use them the most for is characterization and diagnosis. In my line of work, which is quality engineering, the ability to diagnose problems in physical systems (both product and machine/process-related) is a critical skill, and I will go as far as to say that diagnosing problems is a critical skill in any engineering discipline.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Future of Today’s Risk Professional Guest

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

What is a risk professional?

Risk management is an objective-focused concept. Risk professionals must, therefore, be a catalyst, an advocate, and trusted friend for driving superior organisational performance.

They must walk alongside executives, managers and staff to achieve organisational objectives by making better decisions under uncertainty, risk, and opportunities.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

15 Ways to Remove Operational Risk

To increase reliability, you need to decrease the chances of failure occurring. Each chance of failure creates risk. Operating risk can be mitigated and managed by meeting all 15 Precision Maintenance excellence targets.

This list of precision maintenance excellence targets is how to ensure component parts, and the equipment they are in, always operate with optimal reliability. Each requirement must be met to the highest standard. By doing this your equipment and machinery are operating with the least microstructure stress possible and getting utmost reliability.

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by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

FMEA Recommended Actions – Insights and Advices

Did you know that early FMEA standards did not include recommendations to reduce risk? They limited the analysis to the technical risk, without making specific recommendations. The first time I am aware of that an FMEA standard added a column called “Recommended Actions” was in 1993. Thankfully, it is common practice today to include Recommended Actions in FMEAs.

But what makes for excellent Recommended Actions and what is their role in an FMEA? We’ll begin with the fundamentals.

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by George Williams Leave a Comment

Self Ownership Part 1

Here’s a common situation that most of us have experienced in our careers or education:

You’re working on a project with a tight deadline, the task is do-able, but difficult. Everyone has their specific tasks assigned, and the whole team is working together on a final document to turn in. Your section is the financial analysis portion of the project.

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by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Indoor Dispersion: A Simple Model To Estimate Indoor Concentrations

While evaluating impact of a toxic release, you may be interested in how the concentration of the toxicant increases in a room and its impact on indoor personnel. For example, if there is a H2S release in the plant and you want to estimate the increase in concentration in a nearby office building.

I want to share a simple model to estimate indoor concentrations following an outdoor toxic release. [Read more…]

by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Qualitative Assessments: Do the Fine Points of Risk Matrices Really Matter?

Opinion-based data is the foundation of qualitative assessments. Qualitative assessments are used in various applications, including asset management, risk management, human reliability analysis, and customer surveys. The usefulness of any qualitative assessment is a function of design, analysis, and administration. This article summarizes a review of ten risk matrices performed by facility owners or their consultants. [Read more…]