Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Why is it that Reliability Programs often fail and are not sustained? Bringing about such a change in a large organization is often one of the most difficult tasks that we undertake.
This undertaking requires a shift in mindset and in the ways people work. People love the status quo and are often afraid of the change. We must show them that there is nothing to be afraid of and that the change will be beneficial.
No Fields Found.
Last week we had the opportunity to view the first five of the top 10 signs that you are Maintenance & Reliability Best Practices by Ramesh Gulati. I hope you were able to compare your operation to the first five and see where you are excelling and where you may have challenges.
Those first five focus on the specific work streams in Reliability & Maintenance. These next five are a combination of the main work streams and the foundations to a successful operation. [Read more…]
The University of The West of Scotland Quality Centre is an internationally renowned Centre which offers post graduate taught and research programmes in Quality Management as well as training, consultancy and short courses for industry.
login to view program details ⇒
It’s Friday afternoon and the phone rings. It is another customer complaining about your product not working. This is the fifth call this afternoon. Something is wrong and you’re responsible for making it right.
The natural failure analysis process starts across your team. Gather information, determine the scope of the issue, work to understand the root causes, and implement an appropriate solution. This may involve stopping production, halting shipments, or even a product recall.
Initially, you just have more irate customer calls than a typical Friday afternoon. [Read more…]
I get it, we all love the “easy” button. Whether it’s ordering groceries for delivery today, household items for delivery tomorrow, or a ride to the airport via a tap on your phone, we’ve gotten used to convenience and simplicity when it comes to solving problems.
[Read more…]
This article will be providing “World Class Maintenance” Best Practices. As I write this article, I like to ask what people are saying about this topic.
Several surveys conducted in industries throughout the world have found that 70% of equipment failures are self-induced. Maintenance personnel who are not following what is termed ‘Best Maintenance Repair Practices’ substantially affect these failures. Between 30% and 50% of the self-induced failures are the result of maintenance personnel not knowing the basics of maintenance.
Maintenance personnel who, although skilled, choose not to follow best maintenance repair practices, potentially cause another 20% to 30% of those failures. The existence of this problem has been further validated through the skills assessment process performed in companies throughout the world. This program evaluated the knowledge of basic maintenance fundamentals through a combination of written, identification and performance assessments of thousands of maintenance personnel from a wide variety of industries.
[Read more…]
Outsourcing is a form of alternative service delivery where one company hires another to perform some of its functions. It’s fairly common in some fields, such as accounting, manufacturing, human resources, procurement, and IT, but not as common when it comes to maintenance and asset management. It has its advantages and risks and must be approached carefully.
In July/Aug 2014, we authored an article on outsourcing in PEM magazine (now MRO Magazine). Although outsourcing isn’t yet as popular in North America, as elsewhere, it is increasingly being seen as an option. Here are a number of considerations to make when considering outsourcing or contracting services.
[Read more…]
Accuracy Controlled Standard Operating Procedures Use The 3T’s – Target, Tolerance, Test – For Work Quality Assurance
Assure production and maintenance work quality with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures containing 3t precision work instructions where work is done right-first-time, every time
—
An Accuracy Controlled Enterprise (ACE) is focused on getting things ‘right first time’. The quality focus in an ACE is about doing a job, every job, masterly, whether done on the shop floor or in the boardroom. That is achieved with accuracy controlled standard operating procedures in which every task is proven to be completed accurately before continuing to the next task. It is about being a master of what you do so you deliver world-class results in your work. You can read about being an ACE in the white paper The Accuracy Controlled Enterprise.
[Read more…]
Orders and being ordered can mean many things to many people. In biology order concerns the taxonomic rank for classifying organisms. More generally speaking it concerns the arrangement of people or things in relation to each other in some form of pattern, sequence, or method. Alternatively, it can mean an authoritative command or instructions that are, typically, conveyed in a particular sequence. When ordering a meal, for example, it’s normally done in the order in which the food will be served, but that’s always best clarified in some countries!
However, and despite orders regulating many of the things we do and being an intimate part of our lives, the concept of giving or taking ‘orders’ is taken as reprehensible and repugnant behaviour by some. Ordering for them, outside of restaurants or other purveyors of supplies, smacks of being in the army or being subjugated. Regimentation and discipline are often frowned upon by some of our more sensitive colleagues.
[Read more…]
In the field of reliability engineering, distinguishing between correlation and causation is essential for accurately identifying the root causes of system failures and ensuring the reliability of engineered systems.
Correlation refers to a statistical relationship between two variables where changes in one variable are associated with changes in another. However, this relationship does not imply that one variable causes the other to change. For example, an increase in ice cream sales and shark attacks are correlated because both increase during the summer, but one does not cause the other.
[Read more…]
The article was written to cause people to question traditional approaches to FRACAS. In time senior managers in companies will come to realise that FRACAS has little chance of successfully improving their company. They then can instead look for what does work to move their operations to world class production performance.
[Read more…]
In this series, we’ll dive into insights from the soon-to-be-released updated book on hardware product realization by unpacking the strategies, pitfalls, and opportunities that will define the future of building hardware in an AI-driven world.
[Read more…]
People conclude what is expected of them is based on cues received from the forces that they face daily. These forces drive what they believe and how they should behave – in either constructive or defensive ways. These behaviours can either enables or inhibits effective risk management.
These forces also influence how people:
The attitude towards risks and risk management varies from person to person, from unit to unit, and from stakeholder to stakeholder. It can also be influenced by social context and surrounding culture.
[Read more…]