Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
No storeroom is perfect, well at least of those I have seen. The process of improving is never ending. A common term for this process of continuous improvement is Kaizen. The Kaizen activity is often seen on the plant floor, either the form of a blitz, in which a tremendous amount of resources are thrown at an issue or an area. The other is a systematic approach, in which a small amount of improvement is achieved each day. [Read more…]
This is the base of the pyramid – its foundation, comprising Strategy, People, and Teams. It includes a few topics: Strategy and People and Teams. [Read more…]
The biggest problem to your Reliability Program is living in Reactive mode. In this video, I talk about how you can create a Proactive Reliability environment by doing two very important things. [Read more…]
We hear about ‘poor communication’ so often related to undesirable outcomes, that the term has become somewhat generic in nature. It has become meaningless in terms of implementing corrective action plans to prevent the risk of further miscommunication. How can we act on ‘poor communications’ without understanding what causes such miscommunication? This article will focus on applying key RCA principles to understanding what causes miscommunication. [Read more…]
Knowing what the best practices are in a storeroom or spare parts management process is not enough. The best practices need to implemented, and typically it can’t just be implemented right away. The level of resources, the ability of people to change all prevents the immediate implementation. In addition, not every organization will be at the same starting point or want to go to the same level of maturity. This is where an assessment comes in. [Read more…]
Benjamin Franklin’s axiom, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, has been used most commonly when referring to health care. It is also highly appropriate in reliability and maintenance circles.
Of course, we complicate it in business by wanting to know what the prevention will cost and what we save by avoiding the cost of the cure. [Read more…]
Who knew that a rogue poker player would teach me how to maintain our ???? ????????? “machine.” When we get this, everything else suffers, big-time. This is similar to a “safety time out.” [Read more…]
If we have heard it once, we have heard it a million times – “let’s do an RCA on that failure”. The problem here is that phrase will mean something different to everyone who says it. What is an RCA? That is a question even the notable experts cannot agree on. With all of this RCA “chaos”, how do we make any progress? [Read more…]
Image going for a vacation, but you don’t have a destination in mind, directions to the destination, or any funds allocated for the trip. What kind of vacation will you have? Chances are it won’t be a good one.
The importance of a plan cannot be understated. Without a plan in any aspect of life, business or reliability, achieving goals are difficult, if not impossible. Oftentimes organizations implement tactical activities, without a strategic plan. This ad-hoc approach often results in certain aspects of a maintenance & reliability program implemented, but the results do not materialize.
Maintenance workflow is the step-by-step process that gets initiated by some trigger event to the point where the action is closed out. For example, in a typical maintenance operation, a trigger event could be a report of faulty equipment. The step-by-step workflow process would include the generation of a maintenance order, the planning of the task, the execution of the repair and the reporting at the end of the job. Every organization has a workflow process whether it is officially documented or not; there is always a standard way to get things done. When this process is not well-defined, it can lead to frustrations on the part of employees trying to get their jobs done as well as major inefficiencies that are costly to the organization over time. In comes maintenance management software…
Let’s say that you run your own business. You have an opportunity to invest some money and get a payback that is more than your total investment within the first year (payback is more than 100% in the first year). Moreover, that payback will continue for many years. Would you invest?
Most entrepreneurs running their own businesses would say yes. After all, the proposition is a “no brainer”. There aren’t a lot of investments with such huge paybacks. Yet many managers in most larger companies won’t go for it. Why? [Read more…]
Is Human Error in Maintenance the problem? Or are our processes and systems setting us up for failure? As responsible custodians, we need to correct the real problem. [Read more…]
Traditionally RCA is only utilized after an event has occurred, so how can one call it proactive? This perception is explored through trying to understand the current paradigms that exist about RCA, what it is and when it is used. Do we really have to wait for an undesirable outcome to occur in order to use RCA? [Read more…]
Oftentimes, plans and strategies are developed and implemented. Many times the implementation is handed off and the team left on their own to implement. And many of the times, the implementation fails or the results are not delivered.
Why is this? It is because there is a lack of governance and accountability. These are more than just words. They are a system, process and a sense of ownership throughout the organization to ensure that the plan is implemented and any roadblocks are dealt with. [Read more…]
These are challenging economic times and opportunities abound with many of our customers to add new business value. They are turning to us and asking: “You’ve brought great value to our Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM-R) program through knowledge capture, personnel education, laying the foundation for a ‘living’ maintenance program and so on. However, what additional value can you provide us beyond what you have already done?” One answer: “Focus on writing high-value, asset maintenance tasks. i.e. Tactical PM Program Implementations”. [Read more…]