Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:
What is the one thing that all operations have? If you guessed a breakdown hero or fire fighter, you are correct.
You know the person who swoops in like Superman and repairs a machine quickly. These breakdown heroes are the people who reduce the time to repair, but do they contribute to or reduce the reactivity of the site? [Read more…]
Polyethylene is one of the most commonly used engineering plastics.
Its chemical resistance properties and ease of fabrication make it popular in the chemical industries. Its molecular structure provides the key to its versatility.
Keywords: HDPE, long chain macromolecule, thermoplastic, plastic welding. [Read more…]
Welcome to part six of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance.
To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles, I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry.
The work management process is essential to keeping costs under control in maintenance but how will you know if you are doing well if you don’t measure what you are doing and the results you get?
Performance management is another essential for maintenance management. Costs are important, results are important and so are the processes you use to turn costs into results.
Performance management is central to managing those processes so you get the most output for the least input – the greatest cost effectiveness. [Read more…]
As Engineers, Craft and Maintenance people, we have a tendency to be excited by the technological advancements that become available.
This is not a bad thing provided we do not let them become the flavor of the month or take our attention away from what we are here to do. Enable Reliability and Maintenance.
Often we find much information on the advanced technical topics such as Reliability Engineering, Life Cycle Costing, or various CBM technologies. When properly deployed, these techniques allow us to further our success in Reliability and Maintenance.
But what about the foundations that make these interesting techniques successful? [Read more…]
Valves can be used to both isolate and regulate liquid and gas flow.
Valve used for isolation duties must provide secure, tight shut-off. Consideration must be given to the nature of the process chemical, the quality of sealing and the impact of outside environmental occurrences.
Keywords: bubble tight, design pressure, leakage rate, fire rated, differential pressure. [Read more…]
Welcome to part five of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels.
In these articles, I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry.
Without parts, many jobs can’t be done. There’s no point planning and scheduling work if you can’t rely on materials management to provide the parts when you need them. If you want excellence in maintenance you need excellence in materials management. [Read more…]
Why is it that Reliability Programs often fail and are not sustained? Bringing about such a change in a large organization is often one of the most difficult tasks that we undertake.
This undertaking requires a shift in mindset and in the ways people work. People love the status quo and are often afraid of the change. We must show them that there is nothing to be afraid of and that the change will be beneficial.
One method to provide a formal means of appraising people’s performance is by using performance reviews. The employee and manager together use a structured check sheet to work through keys duties of the employee.
They address both the good, and not so good, aspects of performance. The end result is an unbiased assessment of the employee’s current performance and a plan to improve it over the coming year.
Keywords: rating scale, verifiable, performance standards. [Read more…]
Chain drives are used when precise speed ratios are required between the driver and driven shafts. A chain drive allows no slippage. An example is on a gearbox driving a conveyor. Chain drives are also used when a large amount of power is required through the drive. For example the drive on large rotating kilns. [Read more…]
Being able to see what world class Reliability & Maintenance looks like is one thing. Communicating that success and level of performance to non-maintenance people can be difficult. Not to mention, that we always need to improve, and how can we if we only use qualitative measures?
I remember one time, trying to explain how Maintenance Planning & Scheduling has improved our maintenance department. I used explanations like; “The team isn’t wandering around looking for parts” and “They don’t need to leave the job to get the manuals anymore”. I was met with blank stares and was asked “How much were we saving on labour” and “How much were we able to reduce planned downtime”. [Read more…]
Welcome to part four of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry.
Like the human body, our plant and mobile equipment will break down if it’s not looked after. It will tolerate some abuse but it won’t do it forever and it won’t do it if you don’t take care of it at a basic level. Basic care is all about taking care of our physical assets so they continue to do what we need them to do. To choose excellence it’s essential to master the basics. They keep you compliant with regulations and keep you operating. Beyond them you expand in the direction of excellence. [Read more…]
Historically numbers have been used to represent the work type.
As numbers are not a universal human method of description, the work type is also described using words.
The proper choice of words is critical if classification errors are to be minimized.
Keywords: CMMS, computerized maintenance system, breakdown, corrective, work order, implementation. [Read more…]
Welcome to part three of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry.
At the core of the maintenance function is work management – a six step process for getting maintenance work done. Without it workforce deployment becomes reactive to emergencies and maintenance costs are high. Work done in those reactive situations is anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times as expensive as work that is fully planned and executed on schedule. In some industries the cost of emergency work is even higher. If you choose excellence then master the work management process. [Read more…]
Last week we had the opportunity to view the first five of the top 10 signs that you are Maintenance & Reliability Best Practices by Ramesh Gulati. I hope you were able to compare your operation to the first five and see where you are excelling and where you may have challenges.
Those first five focus on the specific work streams in Reliability & Maintenance. These next five are a combination of the main work streams and the foundations to a successful operation. [Read more…]
When spares cannot be purchased easily it becomes necessary to manufacture your own.
Local fabricators, foundries and machine shops can often make the item if you provide them with a design and specification.
Keywords: casting, reverse engineering, metallurgy, original equipment manufacturer, second hand. [Read more…]