Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
I recently attended a conference where I listened to a presentation on Human Performance Improvement (HPI) by Dr. Todd Conklin and other speakers advocating Dr. Conklin’s ‘Learning Team’ approach. This was the first time I had heard Root Cause Analysis (RCA) referred to as ‘old school’ and obsolete. This got me to thinking, given I have been in the RCA business for decades, is what I do for a living…obsolete?
A plan is a road map toward a destination. It provide guidance toward a goal. The idea of a plan is to consider the path forward, the knowledge necessary to acquire, and the decisions along the way.
No plan is perfect other than those that successfully accommodate the successes and setbacks along the way. No plan can anticipate all the information yet to be uncovered, yet it can set a course to deliberately uncover what is necessary to move forward.
An important part of the Reliability Centered Maintenance process, or used as a standalone approach for less critical assets; the Failure Mode Effect Criticality Analysis is vital reliability tool. However, a large percentage of organizations do not take advantage of the tool during the design phase of the asset, or to develop the maintenance strategy once the asset is installed.
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Many maintenance organizations invest in a CMMS/EAM in hopes that it will solve their maintenance management problems, only to discover that the software fails to deliver the desired results. Faulty software might be to blame for some CMMS implementation failures, but more often than not, the problems begin well before the software is even implemented. Here are 7 tips for avoiding CMMS failure:
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Entropy and maintenance are more related than you might think. What happens in maintenance and many operations can be explained with this simple thermodynamic concept. Entropy is a concept that represents chaos and degradation. It occurs naturally in any physical system and will naturally grow (i.e.: the system will become more chaotic) if we don’t do something to arrest its growth. Doing something requires the expenditure of energy, so energy is what counters entropy. Entropy and maintenance are seldom discussed together, we don’t speak of these thermodynamic terms and concepts in everyday language and conversation, but they are at work behind the scenes. For practical purposes, if we want something to remain orderly we need to put some form of energy (effort) into keeping it that way. If we don’t, then nature will steadily and relentlessly increase the state of chaos in which we exist. In maintenance that means moving from proactive (which requires energy) to reactive (which drains it away).
Studies show most projects fail due to poor management of known risks. The known risks on a project are:
The question is how do we manage known risks better? Known risks can be significantly mitigated with application of basic Project Management methods and processes.
This article will address scope. The other known risks will be addressed in separate articles.
At my job interview, the new product development director, an econometrician, explained that he tried to forecast auto parts’ sales using regression. His model was
sales forecast = SUM[b(s)*n(t-s)] + noise; s=1,2,…,t,
where b(s) are regression coefficients to be estimated, n(t-s) are counts of vehicles of age t-s in the neighborhood of auto parts stores. The director admitted to regression analysis problems, because of autocorrelation among the n(t-s) vehicle counts, no pun intended.
Traditional SPC methods were developed to support high volume production and long production runs. However, with the trend toward product specialization, product diversity, and flexible manufacturing, short production runs have become more common. Applying SPC in the traditional manner presents challenges in short production runs, because by the time enough data is collected to establish valid control charts, the production run may be over! [Read more…]
In our last series highlighting the 4 primary Failure Modes (FM) of component failures (erosion, corrosion, fatigue and overload), we discussed how to read fractured surfaces. In this follow up series, we will take a look at tips on how to collect, preserve and examine such failed components.
The Critical Equipment Series has covered design and design risk reduction. A Laboratory Test Program (LTP) is the final step in validating the equipment design after updating it with all improvements determined through design risk reduction and related activities.
Determining which parts of stock can be a very overwhelming process. As such, many choose to blindly accept the OEM or Manufacturer’s recommendations. And why shouldn’t they? The OEM has many years of experience in building these types of assets and supplying spares, right?
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Business processes are often talked about, yet not well understood. The big problem with them is that too few people know what the whole process actually should be. Whenever you are following a set of steps to achieve some goal you are following a process. Sometimes various people follow different steps to achieve the same goal. You rely on processes in order to deliver results. If they are ill-conceived or inefficient, then things move slowly and results are more expensive to obtain than they need to be. Well designed, efficient, and consistent processes that integrate with other related business processes keep things running smoothly, costs down, and help to keep people motivated.
Mature organizations seeking a competitive edge are familiar with the term Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). A maintenance philosophy encompassing predictive, preventative, and maintenance, RCM uses defined processes to find latent or hidden failure modes, customizing maintenance processes to maximize system performance. Most understand that the RCM philosophy enhances equipment availability through improved reliability, increasing annual earnings before interest, tax, and amortization (EBITDA). Yet, some businesses fail to understand that equipment availability comprises two crucial inputs, not one. Equipment reliability, yes, but also equipment maintainability. [Read more…]
On July 17, 2020, the American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) issued a report entitled “Delivering Outcomes, Building Trust”. The ACT-IAC is a non-profit educational organization established to create a “more effective and innovative government”. The report provides some ideas on how the United States Federal government can become “more resilient, adaptable, and responsive.” This piece will look at the report and its recommendations.
In the last article, we learned how to determine the coefficients of a predictive model for 2-level screening designs. It is more complex to determine model coefficients for multi-level experiments so for those, we rely on statistical methods software.
In this article, we look at using the model to develop solutions. So that we learn the basics, we first use some simple algebra to find a solution. Then, in the next article, we will explore some common tools that are found in DOE software programs to help uncover solutions. [Read more…]
