Does this make sense to you 👇🏻?
On my way to Boston to visit my sister yesterday, two Reliability Moments smacked me in the face.
[Read more…]Does this make…?
AEC Q100 Test Sample Sizes
Introduction
Automotive Electronic parts are qualified before usage in serial production. When product quality and reliability are poor, then assembly problems, high warranty costs, poor service, and recalls occur. The OEM’s and suppliers followed different qualification plans. Ford, GM, and Chrysler and large parts suppliers started the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC) in the 1990’s, with the mission of defining a suite of common qualification tests.
The first qualification standard was Q100, which defined stress tests for electronic components containing integrated circuits. These components are in every electronic control module, some sensors, entertainment systems, safety systems, and, in the future, autonomous driving systems.
Facilitation Skill # 9: Encouraging Creativity
“Creativity is an ability to respond adaptively to the needs for new approaches and new products.” Frank Barron
Creativity is an essential ingredient to achieving excellence in FMEAs. Excerpts from the book Effective FMEAs will be used throughout the article.
Reactive vs Proactive
George Williams, CEO of ReliabilityX, explains the difference between reactive maintenance vs proactive maintenance.
Read moreWhat to Look for in a Computerized Maintenance Management Software Reporting Module
Reporting is one of the most important functionalities of computerized maintenance management software. Organizations spend a great deal of money to obtain data that they can use to make informed business decisions. The ultimate goal of implementing software for maintenance and facilities management is to achieve returns in the form of increased productivity and savings. A CMMS reporting module aids maintenance managers in achieving this goal by enabling them to receive data from maintenance technicians, analyze the data, and make continuous improvements. Reporting modules also allow users to produce graphs and charts of key performance indicators (KPIs).
[Read more…]Maintaining Process Safety During Tough Economy
We appear to be in a global recession – companies all over are struggling to deal with impact of economic slowdown. In an attempt to maintain profits, companies are drastically reducing their spending and also trimming down their workforce. It is anticipated that one-fourth of the employers in the US will undergo workforce reduction in 2009. As a result of pessimism and uncertainty about future, there is an increased level of anxiety amongst the employees. There are a few issues that a chemical manufacturing firm must address to ensure safe operation during the downturn:
[Read more…]Five Ways to More Effectively Facilitate Reliability Assessments
Reliability assessments require all of the previous six facilitation good practices in the “Five Ways to More Effectively Facilitate…” series. This article discusses five ways to effectively facilitate reliability assessments by conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo.
The foundations of systems thinking apply to facilitating reliability assessments because the analysis requires a group to establish the nature of separate and inter-related components. Facilitation is defined as a structured session(s) in which the meeting leader (the facilitator) guides the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all participants.” For reliability assessments, predefined steps, definitions, and prioritization of implementation actions are three key aspects.
Facilitating Reliability Assessments
A reliability assessment is a decision-making tool that assists in making trade-off decisions related to system performance and financial investments. The major benefit is a comprehensive understanding of the interrelated physical parts, human aspects, and interfaces. In the least case, reliability assessments will indicate a system’s single points of failure and generate mitigation actions that make success more probable. In the greatest case, a reliability assessment will quantify the probabilities of success and failure.
[Read more…]3 Steps To Make RCAs More Impactful For Your Managers
If managers knew what the overall power of a well supported Root Cause Analysis (RCA) effort meant for their bottom-line, they would be breaking down doors to implement the process.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case, so this paper is an attempt to educate such individuals about the characteristics of an effective RCA methodology. The paper focuses on the three aspects of RCA we believe leadership teams need to understand the most. [Read more…]
Using Failure Analysis to Improve Product Reliability
Failures during product testing and use are a fact of life. Even with the most robust design we can develop an overly aggressive reliability test or find users that dish out punishing treatment, causing product failures. And for designs that are less robust, standard reliability tests and normal users will cause failures, occasionally or frequently depending on the design robustness.
When a product fails, its related to failure of individual components and/or joints between components. When a component or joint fails, it’s because their materials degraded to the point that the component or joint could no longer perform as required.
[Read more…]A New Paradigm for Reliability Engineering
We live in turbulent times. Transformational times. But what are the possible implications for the production industries and for process plant reliability engineering?
In 2020, Deloitte (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited) attempted to address the first part of this question by examining four (4) possible scenarios for the future of Europe’s chemical process industry. The results of their study (refer Figure 1) are relevant for many industries and suggest that “proactive transformation” will be required for a profitable and sustainable future (i.e., Scenario 1).
[Read more…]Hit Your Budgeted Monthly Production Costs and Targets
For industrial operations struggling to get budgeted monthly operating results, we have a new book about building a “success system” in your company. If you want to ensure your monthly production targets and operating costs are always hit, read Industrial and Manufacturing Wellness.
Developed from the Plant Wellness Way, the Industrial and Manufacturing Wellness Enterprise Asset Management methodology gives you a systematic, structured approach to build a holistic, lifecycle business system that consistently gets you the best possible monthly production successes.
[Read more…]Digital Transformations – can they succeed?
Hot on the heels of my two articles (part 1 and part 2) about Data being unfit for purpose is another article by my colleague, Paul Daoust, just published in Canadian Business Quarterly.
[Read more…]Annette Davison Ph.D – Future of Work – Risk Management
Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Dr. Davison has more than 30 years’ experience in environmental management, integrated water cycle management and risk assessment. Davison has more than 30 years’ experience in environmental management, integrated water cycle management and risk assessment. She is the Principal Risk Analyst and founding Director of Risk Edge® Pty Ltd. and co-founder and R&D Manager, D2K Information Pty Ltd. She received her PhD in Environmental Biochemistry and Microbiology from Macquarie University. Her most recent book is entitled: The Application of ISO 31000 to Drinking Water Quality Risk Management: A Practical Approach. It is published by Edge Pty Ltd, Sydney Australia.
[Read more…]The Hard Facts About Soft Skills
A version of this article was previously published in the December 2015 edition of Quality Progress magazine.
Last summer while visiting my hometown, I ran into Sam, an old friend who works in a senior technical position for a very large organization. In the course of our conversation, Sam told me about a recent discussion he had with his division’s manager about the possibility of moving up in the company. He was trying to find out if his boss would recommend him for a promotion to a particular supervisory level position that had just opened. His manager’s reply was provocative. He said, “Sam, you’re excellent at your job. I don’t know what we’d do without you. But before I could recommend you for a team leader position, you’re going to have to work on your soft skills.”
[Read more…]Safety Forecast For The 21st Century
The 20th century was a time of great technological change that forever transformed how we live and work – changes that necessitated the birth and development of the field of Process Safety Management. The early years saw the evolution of mechanization into assembly lines and true industrialization. Lack of access to South American nitrate during World War I, led to the creation of the synthetic chemical industry. World War II fostered increased industrial growth and sophistication. By the 1960s, we were building computers and beginning our race to the moon. Industries grew becoming increasingly sophisticated and reliant on automated systems. The 1970s brought the creation of the US EPA and OSHA. The 1980s witnessed one of the greatest tragedies in the last century – an estimated 4,000 people died in the 1984 Bhopal accident. Since then, the process safety community has evolved in its approaches and methodologies to better manage risks.
[Read more…]