Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
This particular myth is not overly common, but it still occurs, usually in the minds of people who are really good a fooling themselves. It becomes more common when it is modified to say, “…running as well as it ever has”.
There are two parts to this one: 1. We believe it is actually running well, or as well as ever, and, 2. We really think we’re great and there truly is no room to improve. [Read more…]
A lot of businesses have had to make tough decisions during COVID-19, including decisions that affect their people. Some of these decisions include cutting hours, cutting wages & lay-offs. Throughout my career, I’ve been affected by some of these decisions. The line that stuck with me the most, when I was being laid off by an HR manager, she said to me “this is a business decision”. [Read more…]
I’ve spoken with a few of my customers over the past couple of weeks, one who happens to be in the food business was cranking and working overtime to meet the increased demand that resulted from folks stocking their homes, the other two were labeled non-essential and were preparing to shut down for the foreseeable future. [Read more…]
Who really is our customer? Does your organization have a master: partner supplier relationship or a partnership relationship?
Consider that a customer regularly buys our goods or services. For operations/production to be our customer, then they would be paying maintenance for its service. Do they? In some organizations, this may be the case, but is it that way in yours? [Read more…]
Data is the most valuable commodity in today’s world, and it is no different in reliability engineering. As one of the emerging trends in maintenance space, data plays a critical role in implementing an effective RCM strategy. It is powered by an organization’s ability to integrate multiple data sources into one seamless platform designed to disseminate actionable insights from that data to its decision-makers at the right time.
Recently, I’ve been looking back over my career and trying to understand why so many companies struggle with their reliability programs. The processes, the technologies, the tools have all been around for a long time and yet we don’t succeed.
The reason we don’t succeed is poor leadership. [Read more…]
Usually, this newsletter comes out first thing on Monday mornings. Today, it’s late. It’s late because I didn’t get it done last week. It’s late because I stayed off my laptop all weekend. [Read more…]
I am convinced that our egos often get the better of us. We suffer as a result and so too do those around us. Believing that we have the answers to all of our problems reflects just how much we fool ourselves. Maintenance managers burn out because of it.
Let’s say you are a plant general manager in a facility that is under-performing or not quite achieving the performance improvements you want. Often that can occur because of machinery and system failures that half output, sometimes for long periods before they can be repaired. Once those are corrected you breathe a sigh of relief, thank your maintenance manager for the repair achievement, and ride your production or operations manager to “catch up” on whatever output was lost. [Read more…]
“Rob, how do leaders create an environment for our teams to be vulnerable?”
At first, my answer was that leaders need to lead by example and be vulnerable first.
This is true, but we need to take it a step further.
On this podcast, Brene Brown, a leading expert in vulnerability, talks with Pete Carroll & Steve Kerr about creating spaces for vulnerability. There are 2 key points:
This is the first in a long series of blogs about common myths I have encountered and continue to encounter in my work with various customers. None of these “myths” are universal either – some people believe them, others are not sure, others do not. Which are you? [Read more…]
I wish I had a strong message for you today but I don’t. I’ve been having a rough time lately and I’ve been battling with myself so I can show up for you. I’m not perfect and I’m learning to give myself compassion and love instead of cracking the whip. I’ll leave it at that.
[Read more…]
Cloud computing is increasingly becoming critical to business, especially as digital technologies like IIoT become widespread. Gartner predicts that in the next year, the cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) market will grow 85%, five times faster than traditional software. For industrial companies who want to use the IIoT for predictive maintenance, cloud-based SaaS solutions offer tremendous opportunities that have the potential to disrupt the equipment maintenance world. [Read more…]
Maintain equipment, minimize downtime, meet production demands, manage inventory levels, monitor staff productivity, comply with regulatory standards, etc. etc. The list of maintenance demands in a manufacturing plant is nearly impossible to meet without the help of computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS). Manufacturing CMMS software automates the process of maintaining assets to help simplify operations, maximize uptime and control costs.
Many manufacturing plants are relying on outdated systems or maintenance spreadsheets to keep tabs on their equipment and other important aspects of production. In doing so, they run the risk of premature equipment failure, production lags, increased downtime and, ultimately, the loss of business. Consequently, competitors utilizing modern manufacturing CMMS software are more successful.
As the owner or maintenance manager at a busy organization, one of your priorities will be to monitor the efficiency of your maintenance team to sustain that level of efficiency (if it’s satisfactory), or improving it (if it’s below an acceptable level). Doing this will require that, among other things, you understand what’s really going on while staff are on the job and then identify any areas for improvement.
On this week’s webinar, an audience member, who works at a university, asked how they could teach their students the skills that make us good reliability engineers. My answer was pretty typical, the technical skills are easy to teach & learn, but what makes the great reliability engineers is their ability to build a culture. I continued to say that it takes relationship building and lots of donuts.
But why do we always talk about culture when it’s connecting with the individual?