Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
Educational institutions realize that we all learn differently and combinations of learning styles will reach most of us. Some of us learn by seeing (reading), some by doing (tactile), some by hearing (aural). Most of us have a bit of each of these and rarely only one is enough. In college and university there is reading as well as assignment and lab work. We need both, so, how do we learn once we leave the academic world? [Read more…]
Just like the “Welcome to Las Vegas sign” has stood the test time, so has RCM. In this video, I explain how we’ve never needed RCM more than we do right now… [Read more…]
The graphic of the Swiss Cheese Model (attached is an expression from AHRQ) is a good one and one that many will remember and relate to.
However, I would like to expand on that model and express that more commonly, there is a not a singular or linear path to failure. There are typically multiple paths of failure that converge together at some point in time to cause an undesirable outcome. [Read more…]
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is method for determining the most appropriate failure and consequence management strategies. It deals with your physical assets in your current operating context. The first four questions in the RCM method, are defined in standard, SAE JA-1011, “Evaluation Criteria for Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Processes.” They utilize the time proven engineering method, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). [Read more…]
Watch how two raccoons rescue themselves once we provide them with the right tool…and then they serve us up an excellent lesson on equipment Maintenance and Reliability. [Read more…]
I had to learn a lot to become a transformer reliability leader. I have an engineering background and a transformer maintenance and testing background, but to be the practitioner I wanted to be I had to get educated. I sought out reliability knowledge. I found much of that knowledge through reading and research. It started with Google searches and Wikipedia articles, and it eventually led to half-a-dozen subscriptions to magazines and journals related to the field. It’s incredibly important to keep up-to-date with the industry and with reliability. [Read more…]
I think that 5-year olds had a lock on 5Y’s well before it became a ‘named problem solving tool’. How many times have our kids at that age asked ‘Why’ about everything?
How many ‘Why’s’ do we answer before we say, ‘I don’t know, go ask your mother or father!’
Again (to me), the traditional 5-Y tool is technically incapable of expressing multiple paths of logic that occurred simultaneously. It treats failure like it always happens in a linear pattern (never multiple, simultaneous paths). [Read more…]
Root Cause Failure Analysis (also called, Root Cause Analysis) is great for eliminating the causes of failures. It’s usually used where there are major production, cost, safety, or environmental consequences. But it only deals with failures that have already happened – it is usually triggered by the very consequences you would have been better off avoiding altogether. [Read more…]
My Subaru Forester keeps serving up inspiration when it comes to Maintenance and Reliability. On my way to work, my Low Fuel Light illuminated. I had a choice…stop for gas and make it to work…OR…ignore it and get stuck on the side of the road? A no-brainer, right? Then why, in the Maintenance and Reliability world, do we often find ourselves stuck on the proverbial “side of the road?” [Read more…]
We all can relate to hearing our leaders refer to their workforces as ‘their greatest asset’. We can even go to the annual 10K reports and read about it in the CEO blurbs on the front pages. Are these statements genuine, is the human being an ‘asset’?
In that same 10K report we can flip a few pages down to review our income statements and balances sheets to quickly confirm that the human being is listed as a ‘liability’ and that our equipment is our defined ‘assets’. This is consistent with our Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). [Read more…]
Reliability Centered Maintenance has been around since the 1970’s and it has proven to achieve amazing results wherever it has been used properly. As a reliability method, it guides decision making based on available evidence about past, and expected future, failures. It makes sense that failure data be part of that evidence. But do you need a lot of data? [Read more…]
The fundamentals of Maintenance and Reliability are being cast aside in favor of advancing technology that promises things like reduced maintenance and decreased costs. It’s easy to get caught up in “shiny object syndrome” and that can be a (very expensive) trap. Start from a position of strength and arm yourself and your team with… [Read more…]
Once an ostrich sticks its head in the sand, any risk it might be facing is gone, right? Of course not!
I believe we are living – relative to electric system reliability – with what we call the ostrich effect. Most of us have our heads stuck in the sand. But guess what? The sand is crumbling, and the ostrich is starting to see things; things he can’t hide from anymore. [Read more…]
Author’s Note: I want to reiterate that this Series about reading the basic fracture surfaces, is for novices who often first come into contact with such failed components. This Series is about the basics (101), and is intended to give readers an appreciation for the value of such ‘broken’ parts to an effective investigation/RCA. While this information will be rudimentary to seasoned materials engineers, I know they will all appreciate heightening awareness to the need to retain such failed parts for analysis, versus throwing them away and just replacing the part. Throwing away failed parts is a recipe for a repeat failure, when one does not understand why the part failed in the first place.
In Part I of this series we focused on Erosion and Corrosion as the the first two (2) failure mechanisms of component failure. When Erosion and Corrosion are apparent, there is generally a loss of metal in some form or fashion. [Read more…]
In the late 90’s, the show “60 Minutes” did showed that an average economy car worth $15,000 new would cost about $95,000 if it was to be built from aftermarket parts, and adding in an allowance for your own labor, excluding the uni-body (which wasn’t for sale). It is more or less a given that manufacturer’s make more money on parts for their products than on the initial sale of the product. The parts market is so lucrative that there is an entire industry of aftermarket, non-OEM parts manufacturers with their own reverse engineering capabilities to sell parts at costs lower than the OEMs. If you’ve ever needed an OEM part in a hurry, the premiums are even higher and lead times can be longer than the aftermarket parts “pirates,” as they are sometimes called. [Read more…]