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Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
We all have biases impacting our ability to achieve success. We need to acknowledge them. By making personal choices, we can improve our odds. There are also team structure and ground rules to consider for providing an advantage. [Read more…]
At SDMyers, we can’t stress enough the importance of safety when testing high-voltage electric-power equipment. Our partners at IRISS share our passion for the safety of maintenance workers in the field, including our own mobile diagnostic technicians. We hope that this guest blog from them is educational. If you find value in it, please leave us a comment. And, if you enjoyed this article, then here’s information on the safest way to obtain oil samples from cabinet transformers without de-energizing them. [Read more…]
“Speak with Data!” commanded my former general manager. “Let the Data Sing” is an article I wrote long ago. We all have data, often too much data. We like to present based on what the data says. Yet, sometimes the speaking with data is not clear.
If you’ve done the data gathering, the analysis, the summary, all based on the data, how can you best reveal what the data says to enhance your results and recommendations?
Just because you can add a 3D pie chart doesn’t mean you should. Crafting meaningful charts is only one part of the puzzle. You also have to present the data in a clear and meaningful manner. Here is a set of suggestions to consider the next time you are preparing and presenting when data is involved. [Read more…]
The “Optimize Your Launch” series is a set of interviews with industry experts to help companies bring their products to market quickly, maintain quality, and create loyal satisfied customers. [Read more…]
Maintenance, is already a big enough challenge for many of us, yet beyond lies the realm of Asset Management. Back in 2004, As the second edition of Uptime was being written, the UK was introducing a specification for Asset Management and requiring network utilities to implement it. Drivers included the justification of rates charged to customers by these natural monopolies, the need to convince regulators that good asset management was indeed being practiced and to avoid failures that were increasingly becoming more serious and more publicized. The UK’s Publicly Available Specifications, PAS 55-1 and -2, were the first in this field. Those specifications underwent revision a few years later (2008) and early implementations were successful. The Institute of Asset Management (IAM) in the UK became the primary proponent of PAS 55 and the driving force behind a movement to create a new international standard. Along the way various documents were written to explain asset management and various national and international groups were formed to promote good asset management – some from national groups that were focused predominantly on maintenance. [Read more…]
Studies have shown that most project failures are due to poor management of known risks. The known risks are:
The buzzword, “continual improvement,” is a hard one to miss. No matter how it’s worded, the notion of making changes that positively affect your business isn’t new. If you’re exploring ways to continually improve your maintenance operations, consider the benefits of integrating your computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) with other business applications. Software integrations can vastly increase the efficiency of your everyday operations and processes. Read on to learn our top CMMS integrations for your business.
Combining CMMS software with other relevant components of your organization helps eliminate duplicate or redundant processes. For example, critical information that is typically only found in a CMMS can be utilized by additional departments to improve the accuracy of their operations. The likelihood of errors decreases dramatically when systems communicate directly with one another. [Read more…]
Ultrasound is an effective technology that can be used for a few different purposes, not only condition monitoring. Here are my thoughts on the top uses: [Read more…]
In the early years of inkjet printer development, our standard industry reliability testing plans used at HP were not capable of finding potential problems as the product matured. The following issues were found as printer technology continued to develop. [Read more…]
Process capability is a key technique for confirming design and process requirements. This video discusses common elements of the approach. [Read more…]
Lately, I’ve been struggling with poor quality sleep. Sleep has a huge impact on my mood and the insomnia has contributed to increased suicidal ideation and depression. Ironically, the reason why my sleep quality has decreased is due to the new medication I am taking for depression (when I’m through this, I will talk about this more. Right now, it’s too raw of a subject). [Read more…]
Excluding primary practices that still prevail in most industrial companies, the evolution of MRO Materials Management Technology can be summarized in three technological waves, as shown below. [Read more…]
Financial planners would advise you that the key to a successful retirement are four cornerstones:
Not all risks the same. Some are minor with little consequence, while others are not. Every organization or reliability program facings a plethora of risks and being able to communicate the range of identified risks is helped by using a risk matrix.
The risk matrix is a simple two-dimensional grid that lays out on one access the expected consequence of risk, from minor to catastrophic. The other axis has the likelihood or occurrence of the risk becoming realized, ranging from rare too certain.
The boxes within the grid then contain classifications ranging from low to extreme, which provide a prioritization to address the risk in some fashion. Low-risk items are those with rare occurrences and insignificant consequences. The other end of the spectrum are extreme risks that are almost certain to occur and have catastrophic results. [Read more…]
As we make things to be more and more reliable, it gets harder and harder to make them fail in reliability tests. On the one hand – that’s great. On the other hand – that sucks if we want to use testing to help measure reliability. So if we are focused on measuring reliability through testing, we need to make our product or system fail in test conditions (without making it less reliable) but make sure these test conditions can somehow be translated back to how customers are going to use it. This is where accelerated testing comes in. [Read more…]