Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Pascagoula gas plant receives condensate from offshore Gulf of Mexico.
For separating components at cryogenic temperatures, it used brazed aluminum heat exchangers. These exchanger are susceptible to thermal fatigue due to low temperaures.
What does it mean to be a ‘visionary leader’? It starts with being different to most people. You can’t just become a visionary leader by completing a leadership course, being mentored by someone awesome, or by compiling an impressive curriculum vitae (although these can help people with the potential to become visionary leaders get there).
One of the first things that the then United States Army Chief of Staff (General George C. Marshall) did at the outbreak of World War II was to fire the majority of his officers who had climbed the ladder of military ranks throughout the previous 20 years of relative peace.
Things get a little dirty when humans get involved. In any system, human involvement can sometimes cause delays or issues. Here are some effective communication and facilitation secrets for reliability engineers.
Communication is the exchange of information from one person to another.
Communication requires a sender, a receiver, and a message. Technical professionals (sender) usually believe the decision maker (receiver) cannot understand the message because the decision maker is not as smart as they are. Most of the time, the lack of understanding comes from the noise the sender generates. The burden of effective communication is on the send (technical professional), not the receiver (decision maker).
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Fear is that hidden factor present in every organization, preventing leadership from achieving the growth they desire.  In the 2 previous articles, I brought up the types of employee fears and how that fear can negatively impact a given organization.  Additionally, I brought up the importance of assessing these fears and understanding how they’re specifically affecting your organization.  In this third and final article in this series, I’ll explore what leadership can do to mitigate these fears towards cultivating a culture of trust and empowerment.
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In this video, you will learn how to perform statistical calculations: mean and standard deviation on Casio fx991-MS Calculator.
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By Jesús R. Sifonte
Condition Monitoring is a broad term referring to the systematic process of data collection for the evaluation of asset’s performance, reliability and maintenance needs with the purpose of planning repair works. Its main purpose is Potential Failures finding. It requires the collection of good asset’s health data which trending is studied. The primary advantage of Condition Monitoring is that it incorporates health indicator monitoring activities performed while the machine is operating. Assets failures are predicted well in advance of their occurrence. It allows for planning repairs safely and economically for the plant. Also, machine parameter data trending allows extending assets operation as close as possible to their actual useful life. Condition Monitoring data provides vital information for taking important decisions affecting plant operation goals. Maintenance decisions are taken based on the actual asset condition avoiding unnecessary repairs leading to start up failures. Catastrophic failures of a critical assets presenting accelerated wear trends can be avoided by using C tasks too. Sometimes operating conditions changes causing components life expectance to reduce as noted by steeper indicators trends leading to unexpected catastrophic failures. This can be detected by CM and earlier planned shutdowns can avoid such disasters.
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Maintenance Planning and Scheduling can be learnt on the job, but to become a very good maintenance planner and maintenance scheduler you still need to know the reasons behind why you do things in certain ways when you plan and schedule maintenance work orders.
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Smaller organisations, especially those with less than 100 people, often struggle with putting in place the right-size effective risk management practices that do not take up too much of their time and resources.
What I have often seen and experienced is that small-size organisations implement the ‘standard’ risk management practices that are commonly found in larger organisations without much thought as to whether it is fit-for-purpose to enable better organisational performance given their unique context or operating environment.
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In the industrial landscape, the humble lubricant might seem inconspicuous, but it plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation of machinery, reducing friction, and extending the life of critical assets. Achieving lubrication excellence isn’t just a matter of choosing the right oil; it’s about developing a comprehensive program that encompasses the best practices, advanced technologies, and a culture of precision. In this blog, we will explore the methods to build a world-class lubrication program that’s the cornerstone of operational success.
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In the ever-evolving landscape of engineering and design, strategic frameworks play a pivotal role in deciphering the intricate dynamics of customer satisfaction. Consider, for example, the Kano Model of Customer Satisfaction, brainchild of management science professor, Noriaki Kano. This model offers a nuanced approach to understanding the diverse aspects of customer satisfaction, making it a valuable tool for engineers and design professionals as they transition from problem definition to ideation and prototyping. [Read more…]
Read Trevor Kletz’s answers to these questions:
[Read more…]Boeing is really having a bad stretch. Or more specifically, the passengers flying in its 737 MAX aircraft are.
Most recently a ‘plug’ flew off the side of Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane in flight, leaving a refrigerator sized hole next to startled (but mercifully still living) passengers. A ‘plug’ is a panel that seals up a hole in the fuselage that is included during manufacture to allow an optional emergency exit to be installed.Â
This failure is not a good look … especially for a three-month-old plane. Lots of manufacturers of different machines throughout history have been able to successfully bolt panels to cover holes of a similar size to that of an aircraft emergency exit. It is not hard to do. Nor is it hard to have systems in place to make sure it is done right.
FINESSE is a fishbone diagram, a mnemonic, and a mental model. FINESSE stands for Frame, Illustrate, Noise Reduction, Empathy, Structure, Synergy, and Ethics. Systems thinking as applied to effective communication is the cornerstone of FINESSE. We’ll briefly explore these aspects in this article.
Acronyms are a subset of mnemonics that use the first letter of each word to create another memorable word. FINESSE is both an acronym and a mnemonic. [Read more…]
In the previous article, I shared how employee fears can negatively influence the work culture of your organization, stifling innovation, hampering collaboration, limiting growth and preventing continuous improvement.  In this, the second article of a 3-part series, I’ll share the elements of an effective tool to evaluate your organization for employee fears and the impact of those fears.
[Read more…]First parts fail, then machines stop! If its parts don’t break your machines and equipment will always be reliable
Physics-of-Failure microstructure science explains why components fail, and why they get failed during service life. Understanding Physics-of-Failure is foundational to the Plant Wellness Way EAM methodology
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