Search Results for: Change Management

What is Equipment Reliability and How Do You Get It?

High equipment reliability is a choice and not an accident of fortune. To a great extent you can choose how long you want between equipment failures. You can deliver high equipment reliability by ensuring the chance of incidents that cause failures of equipment parts are low. The secret to remarkably long and trouble-free equipment lives is to keep parts and components at low stress, within good local environmental conditions, so there is little risk they are unable to handle their design duty. If there is nothing to cause a failure, the failure will not happen and your equipment continues in service at full capacity and full availability.

For maintenance practitioners, it is the use of precision maintenance backed-up with condition monitoring applied as a tool to prove maintenance work is done precisely, that provides the foundation for exceptional equipment reliability.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

ISO 9001 Certification Figures

Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Recently the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released the 2021 certification numbers. Oxebridge Quality Resources did a good analysis of the 9001 numbers. This piece looks at the results from all the certifications and provides comparison in key certifications between China and the United States.

Overview

In October 2021 I discussed the results of the 2020 certifications numbers. (1) Until last year, ISO certification numbers for the dominate certification 9001 were on a downward trend. In 2020 the number of 9001 certifications increased. The increase was due to two primary factors. One was organizations which had not previously reported certifications reported them. The second was the growth in Chinese certifications.

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by Semion Gengrinovich Leave a Comment

Duty Cycle in Depth

The duty cycle of a fuel cell engine, particularly in the context of acceleration and deceleration of a vehicle, is a critical aspect that influences the performance, efficiency, and longevity of the fuel cell system. Understanding the effects of these dynamic conditions on fuel cell engines is essential for optimizing their operation and addressing potential challenges.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Project Documents: Obviously Wrong or Patently Acceptable

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Project documentation; the bane of some people’s lives, for other’s their raison d’être. Documentation is essential and its written word can ensure effective communication so there is as little misunderstanding as possible. Requirements will be definitive, obligations and liabilities will be unambiguous, and instructions will be clear.

Projects typically require plans and processes as well as details of products and services and methodologies for contemporaneous purposes. They contribute to corporate knowledge, assist with learning lessons and may defend any liability. Documents are usually subject to some form of acceptance, approval, non-objection or similar.

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by Greg Christensen Leave a Comment

CR106: CMMS Adoption Strategy and Asset Hierarchy with Cody Creager of Timber Products Company on CMMSradio

CMMS Adoption Strategy and Asset Hierarchy with Cody Creager of Timber Products Company on CMMSradio

In this episode of CMMS Radio, maintenance superintendent Cody Creager of Timber Products Company delves into the critical role of asset hierarchy in CMMS systems. He outlines how a well-structured hierarchy not only clarifies asset management but also enhances data capture and reporting. Drawing from ISO 14224, Creager emphasizes customization for individual plants and highlights the importance of team involvement in establishing this hierarchy. He addresses challenges like resistance to change, advocating for the demonstration of value to boost engagement. Additionally, he discusses the role of CMMS in preserving institutional knowledge and ensuring safety protocols. Creager’s insights extend beyond maintenance to reflect his diverse interests, illustrating his commitment to a balanced life and professional growth.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Today’s Gremlin – Assumptions

Today’s Gremlin – “Assumptions” can get a planner or a supervisor into a lot of trouble. You might be very knowledgeable and have great faith in your trades-persons, but assuming they know what you know, can be dangerous. There’s always discussion about “how much detail” to put in a maintenance job plan. It should be safe to assume your trades know how to perform those basic skills that earned them their trade. But it is not safe to assume they are familiar enough with your equipment and operation to use those skills correctly.

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by Ayaz Bayramov 2 Comments

FMEA in Practice: Lessons Learned from Mistakes

I usually write articles about topics I personally struggled to understand from the sources available to us such as books, online resources, and so on. I believe most technical concepts are fairly straightforward at their core, but the way we express ideas and translate our understanding into writing often makes them harder for others to grasp. That’s an area where we can all continue to improve.

As part of that journey, my goal with the Breaking Bad for Reliability newsletter is to be a communicator of Reliability Engineering principles, and I am doing this mainly for two categories of people: [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

How to Create a Healthy Organization

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Healthy organisations create an environment where organisational members have mutual trust and respect for each other, especially in terms of how they decide and implement decisions. They create an environment in which organisational members are empowered to deal with their problems and where problems can be identified, discussed, and solved with mutual trust and respect through cooperation and communication amongst themselves.

When there is mutual trust and respect, there will be more teamwork and collaboration. This constructive and collaborative culture will generate a positive ‘risk culture’ and a collaborative approach to risk management. It builds a higher level of risk maturity for the organisation.

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by Christopher Jackson 2 Comments

The McNamara Fallacy

… and why we still make rubbish products that break a lot

Modern militaries don’t win many wars these days. The most dominant, well-funded, highly-trained armies have consistently lost (or at least not won) the Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, arguably the Iraq War, and plenty of others. And many dominant, well-funded, highly-trained companies are consistently spitting out unreliable or unimaginative products that smaller and less dogmatic companies have no problem bettering.

To understand why, let’s look at a man called Robert McNamara.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

How to Make RCFA a Successful Business Improvement Strategy

Many companies adopt root cause failure analysis (RCFA) and then drop it. They use it for while and get no benefit. RCFA is often ineffective when used to solve individual problems. But when used to find systematic causes of problems and improve business systems, it provides grand payback for the effort.

Keywords: root cause failure analysis, business process improvement

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Can Your Engineering and Maintenance Processes Deliver the Reliability You Want?

Much of what we do in engineering and maintenance we accept without question. People say, ―It‘s been done that way for decades,‖ implying that it must be correct. But for equally as many decades have come stories of failed and broken machinery, plant and businesses. On one hand we continue to unquestioningly do what has been done for generations, yet on the other hand we cannot stop equipment failing. There is a subtle connection between the two of which we are only just becoming aware. The connection is obvious when you realise that we have been running our businesses by risk and luck, and not on facts and understanding.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

14 Ways to Keep Maintenance Costs Low

THE Plant Wellness Way EAM SYSTEM-OF-RELIABILITY METHODOLOGY ENSURES YOU ALWAYS HAVE LOW MAINTENANCE COSTS AS PART OF THE WORLD CLASS MAINTENANCE, RELIABILITY AND LIFE CYCLE ASSET MANAGEMENT SUCCESS YOU GET

BELOW ARE 14 STRATEGIES A PLANT WELLNESS WAY EAM SYSTEM-OF-RELIABILITY BRINGS YOU THAT ENSURE THE LEAST MAINTENANCE COSTS FOREVERMORE.

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

7 Proven Strategies to Protect Your Supply Chain

By Wayne Miller and Michael Keer

Reduce Risk and Prepare for the Unexpected

In today’s global economy, supply chain disruptions are inevitable. Companies must proactively plan for resilience and adaptability, whether due to geopolitical tensions, tariffs, component shortages, or factory challenges.

Product Realization Group’s veteran hardware and operations experts Michael Keer, Founder and Managing Partner, and Wayne Miller, New Product Development and Introduction, shared their insights on mitigating supply chain risk, drawing from decades of experience in manufacturing, operations, and supplier management. Below, we outline seven key strategies to safeguard your supply chain and keep your production on track.

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by Larry George Leave a Comment

Progress in USAF Engine Logistics?

I learned actuarial methods for forecasting and spares planning while working for the US Air Force Logistics Command in the 1970s [AFLCM 66-17 and AFM 400-1]. I am grateful for the education, and I am sorry to report that the USAF has reverted to MTBF management.

The US AFLC actuarial methods were developed for engine management in the 1960s by RAND Corp. [Giesler] They estimated age-interval failure rates and made actuarial forecasts of engine demands depending on the flying-hour program plan. An actuarial forecast is ∑a(s)n(t-s), s=1,2,…,t, where a(s) is actuarial failure rate conditional on survival to age s and n(t-s) is the installed base of age t-s. Periodic meetings consolidated engine lifetime and failure data into agreements on actuarial failure rates, for forecasting engine demands and for war readiness spares requirements.

The USAF actuarial methods assume constant failure rates within short age intervals, Poisson demands, and ignore variance induced by variable flying hours per aircraft in the flying hour program. I later figured out how to estimate actuarial failure rates for all engines, major modules, and their service parts, with or without life-limits and without lifetime data; I computed the distribution of demand forecasts, not Poisson. I offered to show AFIT faculty, AFOSR, AFRL, and RAND how to extend actuarial methods to all service parts [George, 1993].

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by Greg Christensen Leave a Comment

CR086: Getting Real About Maintenance VPs Transparency and CMMS with George Williams on CMMSradio

Getting Real About Maintenance VPs Transparency and CMMS with George Williams on CMMSradio

Watch this video, or listen, if you want some real talk about those VPs that parachute in and start making changes – It’s more of a call to action not just a critique – Ton’s of real insights throughout this episode with George Williams, CEO of ReliabilityX, telling it like it is for us all to benefit.

We discuss the challenges and dynamics of maintenance management and technology. How high-level decisions by VPs, often lacking hands-on experience, can disrupt maintenance operations. The importance of asking tough, honest questions during interviews and discussions to truly benefit the industry.

George outlines upcoming courses on asset management and CMMS utilization, highlighting their system-agnostic approach. This conversation underscores the commitment to community and knowledge-sharing, focusing on improving practices and achieving win-win outcomes in maintenance and reliability.

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