The Two Faces of RCM

I had a conference call this morning with some potential clients in regard to rolling out a RCM Blitz™ effort. The sad thing about Reliability Centered Maintenance is the reputation the tool has acquired over the last 40 years has one of two faces.

The sad, tragic and more popular face is that if the Resource Consuming Monster. The reputation that RCM is too detailed, that it takes too long, and that by the time you finish your analysis there are no recourses and there is no money left for implementation. According to a survey conducted on ReliabilityWeb.com nearly 70% of all RCM implementations fail, with statistics like this, it is a wonder the tool still exists. [Read more…]

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Reliability Amnesia!

The condition that occurs when an Engineer, Supervisor, or Manager who once had responsibility for the reliability of your assets gets promoted or transferred to the operations side of the group.

Symptoms of Reliability Amnesia

1. Ignoring information from Condition Based Technologies that clearly show a major component is in the process of failing. The subject may be overheard saying something like “I can’t afford to stop the line now, if we do I won’t make my production goals.” [Read more…]

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Old School Team Building

I’m facilitating an RCM Analysis this week in a second-floor conference room that overlooks a company courtyard complete with manicured landscaping, picnic tables, park benches and walking path complete with distance markers. While this park like setting has been mostly empty the first few days this week today there is a group of 30 people milling around. Some small groups of 2 or 3 are clustered together talking and most everyone is checking out their smart phone for various unknown reasons. I can’t help but wonder what is going on so I ask the team I’m working with why so many people are in the courtyard. [Read more…]

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The 6 Things Every Asset Management Strategy Needs to Be Successful

I want my customers to be successful, every one of them. Yet there are times I can see the writing on the wall and I know as hard as I might try to show them a clear path to what it takes to be successful they have their own plan. Some of them are so complex that people become confused just trying to make sense of them, and others get so hung up in the minutiae of even the simplest of steps like listing a 3 part failure mode they will word-smith themselves to a point where folks just give up. I find myself asking “why do people have to make what is really so simple into something that appears to be complex?” [Read more…]

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The 5 Differences Between Leaders and Managers

The 5 Differences Between Leaders and Managers – Can Someone Be the Best of Both?

While working in the field of Asset Management formerly known as Maintenance and Reliability for over 30 years I have worked with my share of Managers and Leaders. Those who have known me for years know that I started in the field as a Pipefitter Apprentice, worked as a Journeyman and Team Leader for a number of years, did a stint as a Maintenance Supervisor, went to night school to become a Reliability Engineer and then as a business owner working with customers around the world. [Read more…]

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The Elevator Pitch, and No it’s not a Major League thing….

I was taking questions from the audience following my presentation at a conference last spring when a young lady stood up and asked me if I could give my Elevator Pitch.

She must have noted the confused look on my face because she repeated herself this time adding further details.

“If you were riding an elevator with someone and you had a quick minute to sell your RCM services what would you say?” [Read more…]

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5 Reasons Why Your Top Performers Leave and What You Can Do to Keep Them!

Those who know me well know I am a voracious reader. From newspapers and magazines to business related books and novels it’s a rare site to find me without my Kindle or some type of printed reading material. Lately I have noticed a number of articles on the reasons why your best employees are leaving your business and I have to say I saw this problem trend coming more than a decade ago. [Read more…]

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The 6 Signs of a Reliable Plant

Having visited hundreds of manufacturing plants in the last 17 years, someone recently asked me if there were any traits the most reliable plants all had in common. I have listed below the top 6 signs of a reliable plant. [Read more…]

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It’s Time For a Laugh….The 10 Best/Worst Ways to Supplement Your Run to Failure Strategy!

I’ve been told that humor, especially New York sarcasm doesn’t go over too well on LinkedIn. That as a regular contributor of articles, blog postings and hopefully useful updates one should try avoid attempting to use humor as a teaching tool.

Well those who know me well know I also don’t always follow the advice of those who somehow believe we all learn the same way, think the same way and therefore do things the same way. I’m a guy who believes that while common sense might not be that common, when you explain why something makes sense most of the audience will get it. For the others who still don’t understand I of course bring data.

[Read more…]

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Could Delta Airlines Have Missed Some Hidden Failures?

Yet another example of why it’s important to understand the failure modes that make your system vulnerable to complete shutdown. Delta Airlines is learning this lesson the hard way today after having to inform customers around the world that all of its flights would be on hold or even canceled due to a “system wide outage”.

Delta listed the cause for the outage as a power failure near its world-wide office location in Atlanta, Georgia while those at Georgia Power believe it was the failure of Delta’s equipment that caused the power outage.

While each company points the finger at the other, the reality is Delta’s customers around the world are sitting at airports or at home wondering when the problems will be resolved and when Delta will be able to accommodate their travel needs.

[Read more…]

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10 Things a Maintenance Supervisor Can Do Today to Improve Equipment Reliability!

A few months back, I wrote a blog resulting from a conversation I had with a group of Maintenance Technicians who were attending the International Maintenance Conference (IMC) in 2011. While the group was enjoying the conference and learning some new things, the general consensus was that they felt they would not be able to apply the tools and techniques they were learning because “management will say they support reliability, but when it comes right down to it, talk is cheap.”

[Read more…]

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Should I Train a Good Facilitator or a Great One?

One of our customers who is thinking about setting up a RCM Blitz™ Facilitator training class recently asked me if I had a list of traits that all good RCM facilitators seem to have? He also wanted to know the background experience a good facilitator would have and what are some the qualities we should look for in selecting these people?

As I was about to tell him I could e-mail a document I had created on how to select a good RCM Facilitator, an interesting thought came to mind.

Are you really looking for someone to become a good facilitator or would you really like them a great facilitator? [Read more…]

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10 Things Your Reliability Engineers Can Do Today To Improve Reliability

20 years ago, I began my first assignment as a Reliability Engineer at Eastman Kodak’s Photo Chemical facility in Rochester, New York. Now, I understand that I just lost several people who began reading this article by using the words “photo” and “chemical” in the same sentence, but 20 years ago, most photography was still a chemical process. [Read more…]

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10 Things Your Lubrication Technician Can Do Today To Improve Reliability

One of the most common mistakes I see at plants and manufacturing facilities around the world is centered on the lack of a good lubrication program. For whatever reason, the task of lubricating equipment in most companies has been traditionally viewed as menial but necessary and delegated to low skill level employees with little or no training in lubrication best practices. It is this type of thinking that results in the unexpected failure of rotating equipment, including, pumps, motors, gearboxes, and bearings. Worse yet are the companies that have no lubrication program at all and somehow believe that someone in the plant will lubricate the equipment when it needs it. Just leave a few grease guns and some oil drums around the site and people will know when to add some. [Read more…]

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10 Things a Maintenance Tech Can Do Today to Improve Reliability

As companies around the globe look to improve equipment reliability, I can’t help but think of the Technicians and Craftspeople I meet after conference presentations. As they step up to introduce themselves to comment on the presentation, these attendees will often say, “I really liked your presentation, but I don’t think our management would ever support a program like this. What you are doing makes a lot of sense, but we just don’t have the people and our Operations Managers don’t understand maintenance and reliability.” [Read more…]