Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
  • Reliability.fm
    • Speaking Of Reliability
    • Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast
    • Quality during Design
    • Critical Talks
    • Dare to Know
    • Maintenance Disrupted
    • Metal Conversations
    • The Leadership Connection
    • Practical Reliability Podcast
    • Reliability Matters
    • Reliability it Matters
    • Maintenance Mavericks Podcast
    • Women in Maintenance
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
    • Asset Reliability @ Work
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Aasan Asset Management
      • CMMS and Reliability
      • Conscious Asset
      • EAM & CMMS
      • Everyday RCM
      • History of Maintenance Management
      • Life Cycle Asset Management
      • Maintenance and Reliability
      • Maintenance Management
      • Plant Maintenance
      • Process Plant Reliability Engineering
      • ReliabilityXperience
      • RCM Blitz®
      • Rob’s Reliability Project
      • The Intelligent Transformer Blog
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Metals Engineering and Product Reliability
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Product Validation
      • Reliability Engineering Insights
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
      • Equipment Risk and Reliability in Downhole Applications
      • Operational Risk Process Safety
    • on Systems Thinking
      • Communicating with FINESSE
      • The RCA
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability
      • Inside and Beyond HALT
      • Inside FMEA
      • Integral Concepts
      • Learning from Failures
      • Progress in Field Reliability?
      • Reliability Engineering Using Python
      • Reliability Reflections
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • The Manufacturing Academy
  • eBooks
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Openings
    • Books
    • Webinars
    • Journals
    • Higher Education
    • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge
    • Reliability Analysis Methods online course
    • Measurement System Assessment
    • SPC-Process Capability Course
    • Design of Experiments
    • Foundations of RCM online course
    • Quality during Design Journey
    • Reliability Engineering Statistics
    • Quality Engineering Statistics
    • An Introduction to Reliability Engineering
    • An Introduction to Quality Engineering
    • Process Capability Analysis course
    • Root Cause Analysis and the 8D Corrective Action Process course
    • Return on Investment online course
    • CRE Preparation Online Course
    • Quondam Courses
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Live Events
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

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.

For instance, a simple scan of the major job sites and you will find far more organizations looking for quality technicians, engineers, and managers than their reliability counterparts. And when reviewing these job ads, you’ll find that the responsibilities associated with reliability job titles vary more wider than their quality counterparts.

Consider the title of “manager”. The job ads for quality managers look far more similar, and more abundant, than the ads for reliability managers. Most quality manager ads, especially those coming from manufacturing companies, mention auditing, calibration, quality systems, corrective actions, team building, and related hard and soft skills.

The reliability manager job ads also showed evidence of a common core of responsibilities. But these ads tended to describe a narrower set of common core tasks, and a broader set of peripheral responsibilities than the quality manager ads. Some implied deeper connections to non-reliability, maintenance management activities like scheduling overhaul crews and verifying attendance. While others leaned more heavily toward typically quality-related or safety-related activities like implementing lean six sigma projects or ensuring compliance with OSHA safety standards.

But from my review of dozens of ads across multiple job sites, I’ve derived what I believe represents a reasonable set of core activities for a reliability manager working for a manufacturing organization:

  • Developing and implementing reliability testing protocols: This may involve designing and conducting tests to identify potential sources of failure, as well as developing and implementing preventive and predictive maintenance protocols to address these issues.
  • Analyzing data and trends: A reliability manager may be responsible for collecting and analyzing data on the performance and reliability of products and systems. This may involve identifying trends and patterns that can help to identify potential areas for improvement.
  • Developing reliability standards and guidelines: A reliability manager may be responsible for developing and implementing reliability standards and guidelines that are used to ensure that products and systems meet required levels of reliability. This may include establishing testing protocols and requirements, as well as setting standards for the materials and components used in the production of products and systems.
  • Providing training and guidance to teams: A reliability manager may be responsible for providing training and guidance to teams on reliability best practices and processes, in order to ensure that all team members are aware of and understand the importance of reliability in the organization.

Overall, the main function of a reliability manager is to ensure that the organization’s products and systems are reliable and able to function consistently over time, in order to improve customer satisfaction, and reduce costs associated with defects and failures. And while activities like scheduling maintenance personnel and monitoring safety protocols certainly help meet the same top-level objectives, shoe-horning these disparate activities into the job description of a reliability manager without addressing the core activities of the position may leave the organization in a vulnerable position.

When reliability professionals meet an organizations’ reliability needs first, organizations benefit the most from their expertise.

Author’s Biography:Ray Harkins is the Quality and Technical Manager for Ohio Star Forge in Warren, Ohio. He earned his Master of Science from Rochester Institute of Technology and his Master of Business Administration from Youngstown State University. He also teaches manufacturing and business-related skills through the online learning platform, Udemy.

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

« Near-Miss(Es)!!!
Condition Monitoring that Supports Precision Maintenance »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Logo for The Manufacturing Acadamey headshot of RayArticle by Ray Harkins
in the The Manufacturing Academy article series

Join Accendo

Receive information and updates about articles and many other resources offered by Accendo Reliability by becoming a member.

It’s free and only takes a minute.

Join Today

Recent Posts

  • Risk Prioritization in FMEA – a Summary
  • What Are Best Practices for Facilitating Qualitative Assessments?
  • So, What’s Still Wrong with Maintenance
  • Foundation of Great Project Outcomes – Structures
  • What is the Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

© 2023 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Cookies Policy

This site uses cookies to give you a better experience, analyze site traffic, and gain insight to products or offers that may interest you. By continuing, you consent to the use of cookies. Learn how we use cookies, how they work, and how to set your browser preferences by reading our Cookies Policy.