Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
A tutorial explaining the Physics of Failure method applied to regularly failing roller bearings in a dewatering press. After three years of exhaustive efforts to solve the cause of the bearing failures it was decided to test Physics of Failure Analysis with the aim of finding a lasting answer.
In the world of industrial and manufacturing enterprises, where precision and reliability are paramount, maintenance leadership stands as the unsung hero. Behind the scenes, these individuals and teams are the custodians of high-quality operations, ensuring that machinery hums with efficiency, downtime is minimized, and standards are not just met but exceeded. Let’s take a closer look at the essence of exemplary maintenance leadership and why it’s the cornerstone of a well-oiled operation.
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Really? I don’t know any organization that has the time, money, and other resources to do so.
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British oak forests provided the wood to build the fleets that fought the Seven Years’ War, American Revolutionary War, French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars. New trees had to mature for 80-120 years for shipbuilding. By the early 1800s, three-quarters of British oak forests had been harvested to fight a half century of naval wars. Additionally, a scourge of dry rot reduced the service life of Britain’s main battle ships from the historical 25 years to less than 7 years. Britain had a severe national security problem – the Timber Crisis.
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Operators need to estimate when in the future their equipment will attain their end-of-life state. Obsolescence is another word for equipment end-of life. Once they reach this stage, equipment replacement often leads to significant budgetary expenditures. In addition, if the operation has a large number of a particular equipment types, they could all reach their end-of life at the same time leading to even greater financial impact. In industry jargon, this is known as the “Tsunami” effect. Operators need to aware and prepared in order to avoid this “wave” of consequences. Managing future cash inflow and outflows happens to be crucial financial exercise in any organization. Therefore, end-of-life management in an important financial accounting exercise. However, estimating end of life this is not always as straightforward as it seems.
Part 1 of this article is here. And it covered Tips# 1 to 3.
AI projects are R&D initiatives and not simply IT projects. Organizations miss the mark in realizing value from AI as they undertake AI projects just like their network update, or systems infrastructure upgrade.
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About two years ago Jesus Sifonte, CMMI, invited James Reyes-Picknell to be a speaker at a congress that he was holding in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They did not know each other, nor did they even know much about each other. They were recommended to each other by a mutual friend. At the congress, they presented their respective topics and in the evenings shared a few drinks and spoke about maintenance, reliability and asset management. They realized that they both had a shared passion for excellence and we learned about each-others’ experience.
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Predictive Maintenance strategy uses condition monitoring techniques to observe plant and equipment health. Based on the equipment’s condition you plan, schedule and perform any necessary maintenance before the breakdown. To use Predictive Maintenance most successfully you must set-up and run your condition monitoring program correctly all the time—predictive maintenance is a never ending strategy that if not done right at every step will still lead to plant and equipment failures. Learn about the many ways your predictive maintenance program will fail and you won’t even know about it!
Keywords: predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, Con Mon
[Read more…]There’s a quote one of my previous managers had in his cubicle: “Being a manager is easy, it’s like riding a bike. Except that the bike is on fire, you’re on fire, and everything is on fire”. I chuckle every time I read it and then reflect upon the reality of dealing with project deadlines, deliverables, and performance. Reliability Engineering & Asset Maintenance initiatives have a project management aspect to them.
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It’s no surprise that the majority of Australia Mining companies don’t leverage the full use of their data to manage their (expensive) assets better. Industry seems to think this is just an adoption issue, where the term “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” comes to mind. But the reality is that there are far more underlying issues we need to consider why Mining is lagging behind other major industries such as Oil and Gas, Aviation and Power Generation, and yes.. what we do with all our data plays a big part.
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The likelihood of component failure reflects the operational risk present. By reducing the likelihood of component failure to zero, zero operational risk is achieved.
Operational Risk is a mathematical formula, with variables that can be manipulated and controlled to reach the desired outcome. Below are three equations related to operational risk that you can use to change your future.
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RCM may reduce scheduled maintenance if (for example) the current maintenance plan is high in scheduled restoration and scheduled replacement tasks.
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Now SFAIRP is the Criterion to Judge If You have Sufficiently Controlled Your Workplace Hazards
Risk Assessment Used to be Based on ALARP to Decide if Workplace Hazards were Sufficiently Controlled, But Today You Need to Use SFAIRP
The original OHS risk assessment process, procedures and techniques identified hazards; assessed risk; established risk controls; reduced and managed risks to ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP), but safety laws are now changing to ‘so far as is reasonably practicable’ (SFAIRP) [Read more…]
You will find example process diagram layouts with the most effective flowchart templates to use, what to include in them so that the flow chart drives business results and personal performance (and you will be surprised at how easy they are to create). With the right layout and the inclusion of ACE 3T (Target-Tolerance-Test) quality assurance standards your process flowcharts and procedures will drive business and workplace performance. First it is necessary to layout your flowcharts so it is totally clear what must happen in a process or procedure, who is responsible to make it happen, and how their performance will be measured.
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RCM is a process used to identify what Preventive Maintenance or Condition Based Maintenance you need to implement so you get the Reliability you need from your equipment.
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