on Maintenance Reliability

Introduction

Reliability Engineering analytics come with graphs and visual representations providing the analyst with various types of key information. Some graphs are more popular than others. This article highlights the 4 main graphs used in Reliability Engineering Analysis.

They are Reliability, Probability of Failure, Probability Density and Failure Rate. Less common types are not covered here. Such as Contour Plots. The basis of the graphs in this article is the Weibull Distribution. In other words, all the graphs derive from this very popular distribution. The same concepts applies to other distributions.

Introduction

Sometimes, non reliability practitioners assume that a Reliability Analysis is just about “tossing” a distribution at a set of data. It is a little bit more complex than this. There needs to be some sort of engineering validation on the final outcome. The question to be asked is: “does this life model used make engineering sense?” This article highlights the importance of choosing the correct statistical distribution. The alternative leads to flawed decision making and can be detrimental especially when dealing with critical equipment or million-dollar decisions. A worked example is also provided.

Introduction

This article is a highly simplified overview of Equipment Maintenance Strategies. Its objective is to categorize the types of maintenance approaches for the lay person. Sometimes, explaining the basics using simple terminologies, initiates dialogues with others that are outside of our field of expertise. And as such improve collaboration between teams. How about making this accountant who somewhat controls the maintenance budget, understand what maintenance is really about? On the other hand, that same accountant can educate us on their work practices.