Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
We now know how to audit our time, to assess our self-leadership, but we can help even further explain how to become more effective and efficient leaders of ourselves.
The first thing we need to do is be empowered to make our own strategy. This comes with a few requirements.
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Based on incident data in biodiesel facilities, I had written that the biodiesel industry in the US is experiencing an incidentevery two-and-a-half months, i.e. approx. 10 weeks.
Here are incidents following my May 2009 blog post on biodiesel incident frequency.
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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.
The article provides tips for improving qualitative assessment design. Facilitators develop and use qualitative assessments in the execution of their work. Facilitators should be aware of qualitative assessment design as they seek to bring a group of participants to solutions that are created, understood, and accepted by all. [Read more…]
One of the more challenging aspects of FMEA is the subject of Occurrence. Part of every FMEA standard or procedure is the assessment of Occurrence based on an agreed-upon scale. Here are some pointers for when and how to use occurrence in an FMEA.
We’ll start with a definition. The Oxford English dictionary defines “occurrence” as “the fact or frequency of something happening.”
The well-known variance of the Kaplan-Meier reliability function estimator [Greenwoood, Wikipedia] can drastically under-or over-estimate variance. The covariances of the Kaplan-Meier reliability pairs at different ages are ignored or neglected. Variance errors and covariance neglect bias the variance of actuarial demand forecasts. Imagine what errors and neglect do to confidence bands on reliability functions.
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Fatigue involves localized, permanent damage to metals exposed to cyclic stress. In a previous article I discussed the fatigue mechanism. This article covers factors that can be addressed to improve high-cycle fatigue life
Factors that influence fatigue life
Several design, material, and fabrication factors influence component and joint fatigue life, including the following: [Read more…]
In Part 1, we looked at the two relevant dimensions for decision-making under certainty, risk, and uncertainty that form the certainty-uncertainty spectrum are:
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.
A slidedeck by Mike Sondalini for the SIRFRt CM & Lube Forum 2010 Conference.
Mike examines precision maintenance and the supporting condition monitoring with definitions, processes, and examples.
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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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A friend of mine, Dr. Ben Thomas, recently forwarded me a video showing a man escaping incident in matter of seconds.
[Read more…]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:
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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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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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 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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