
Don’t let this biohazard get in the way of bringing your own goals alive. Here’s how…
[Read more…]Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment
by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
The purpose of training your people is to develop capabilities the business needs and to add value to your people so they feel that they have greater worth. But the most important benefit of training is often lost because managers do not get their newly trained people to improve the system of work with their better knowledge and skills.
Everyone needs training to reach their highest potential. Training introduces new ideas and new ways that make us more effective people. There is one vital issue managers need to keep in mind about training if you want to get the greatest returns from the investment in time, money and commitment. Only training put to use returns value and only training of value is of use.
[Read more…]by George Williams Leave a Comment
This informative video provides valuable insights into how we respond to operations and help them improve their processes. By pulling data out of the CMMS, we can identify areas of opportunity and provide recommendations for improvement.
For example, by analyzing the data, we can see where operators may need training, or where improvements can be made in the incoming raw material process. Our goal is to provide practical, actionable advice that can help you maximize your resources and achieve success in your manufacturing facility.
[Read more…]by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment
A PF curve is a graphical tool used in the field of maintenance and reliability. It essentially illustrates a component’s health degradation over its lifetime. As well as a visual guide on when to conduct appropriate action to minimizes operational risks related to unplanned failures. It is essentially a planning tool.
[Read more…]by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
This white paper will teach you how to solve your plant and equipment reliability problems and improve your current plant and equipment reliability up to magnificent performance.
Since the mid-1980’s we have known exactly how to guarantee incredible equipment reliability. Failure-free machinery and equipment is totally achievable (in fact it is remarkably straightforward to do). We have all the answer—we know all the science; we know all the engineering; all the necessary information is readily available. The research has long been completed. The correct solutions for magnificent reliability are practical and quite doable. The problem that remains, is that though we know exactly what needs to be done to get magnificently reliable machines, we cannot get companies to do it right. The limitation to achieving magnificent reliability is not technical. The limitation now seems to be organisational, cultural, and human factors related.
[Read more…]by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment
When it comes to managing risk, there are three elements to consider and RCM can help you define all three. Watch as I manage risk and change consequences all at once!
by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
When you run machines above design rates that decision goes against all that we know about creating high plant uptime and outstanding equipment reliability—in fatigue situations 10% additional stress will cost you ten breakdowns.
The dominate factor in machine life and production plant uptime is the stress in your machines’ working parts. The stress developed in a part’s material of construction microstructure is directly linked to the force applied to it. It does not matter where the force comes from or why it is applied, once the stress in your parts go beyond their microstructure limits your machines fail. If you want to run at high production rates first ensure that your working parts cannot become overstressed.
[Read more…]by George Williams Leave a Comment
We are back with our 4th installment in the Opportunities for Maintenance and Operations series! We have discussed alarms, rework, and event rates. Today we talk about PM Routes. What can a PM Route do if our CMMS system has the ability to manage them? How does one take advantage? Watch the video and find out.
[Read more…]by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment
In probability theory and statistics, the Weibull distribution is a continuous probability distribution. It models a broad range of random variables. Largely in the nature of a time to failure or time between events. It addresses mechanical or structural failures in the field of Reliability Engineering. By nature, the Weibull distribution provides a lot of information such as aging characteristics or expected asset lifetime. One of its most common outputs is the Bathtub Curve.
[Read more…]by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
Physics-of-Failure warns us to keep the sum of all static and cyclic loads on a part’s microstructure below its fatigue stress limit.
The image below shows two example metal fatigue limit failure curves. These curves were determined based on controlled laboratory experiments. These experiments use a machine with a fixed load to test the selected piece’s microstructure stress levels. Curve A shows that at a high stress level, close to the Ultimate Tensile Strength of steel, the test piece failed after 10,000 cycles. As the fatigue stress level is reduced, the test piece lasts longer. When the imposed stress is limited to around 50% of the UTS, the cycles to failure had no measurable limit. On the other hand, Curve B shows that at all levels of fatigue stress the component would eventually fail. However, the same outcome can be seen, that as stress reduces the service lifetime before failure increases.
[Read more…]by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment
Have you ever tried to implement any asset improvement activity but it didn’t go so well? Couldn’t rally the troops? Couldn’t get the kind of management buy-in that you really needed to get things off the ground? If so, you’re not alone.
I’ve read too many articles describing that up to 70% of asset improvement initiatives fail. And I think it’s because a lot of people don’t have a basic understanding of maintenance and reliability principles. So they don’t understand why “change” needs to take place.
[Read more…]by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
Focus on failure elimination, otherwise equipment failures never stop because they are forever being introduced and perpetuated by poor procedures and practices, poor quality control and poor business management systems.
Knowing defects cause future equipment failures, production downtime, unnecessary costs and lost profits, it is necessary to put defect elimination strategies into place to purposely stop defects occurring and to remove the defects that are already present.
[Read more…]by George Williams Leave a Comment
In our first two videos we discussed alarms and event rates. Today we will be discussing rework. What is rework? How can we identify rework? George has it covered. Check it out this latest video and if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment!
[Read more…]by André-Michel Ferrari Leave a Comment
Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is an excellent foundation for Reliability Programs. It is also a stepping stone to build Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) models. Here lies the “beauty” of doing Reliability and Maintenance analysis. Whereby information from one analysis can help enhance another analysis.
[Read more…]by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment
Plant and equipment failures are business process failures. Plant stoppages and breakdowns result from failure-causing practices built into business processes and from leaving the right reliability practices out of them. Processes may superficially look okay because they have documentation, charts and records, but if you suffer a steady stream of failures, problems, and rework, then your processes contain unforeseen ‘traps’ into which your people and equipment regularly fall. Failure was not intended when your processes were chosen and designed, but failure is what happens when they are used.
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