A short video discussion how to design a test to estimate component life.
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Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Understanding FMEA Compensating Provisions
Risk is a function of how poorly a strategy will perform if the “wrong” scenario occurs. Michael Porter
The use of Compensating Provisions in FMEA is a key part of many FMEA standards. Regardless of what FMEA standard you are using, everyone who aspires to doing FMEAs properly should understand the role of mitigating the risk of very high severity.
Effective Safety Communications
Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Recently, I was talking to the Managing Director of a large recruiting firm for safety professionals in Toronto about the importance of communication skills.
It was very clear that safety leaders are just expected to be experts in the technical aspects of safety, but it’s the ability to communicate about safety that sets apart the great safety leaders from the mediocre.
[Read more…]Measuring and Improving Your Chance of Business Process Success
An endless Dilemma confronts every business. It is how to ensure that the activities we undertake will always produce the intended results.
Explosions, workplace deaths, harmful accidents, physical injuries, damaged goods, scrapped jobs, repeat work, manufacturing errors, operating mistakes, bad repairs, misunderstanding, wrong decisions, supplier miscommunication and poor delivery performance are all examples of the many unwanted troubles and problems caused by the Dilemma. Its impacts and effects have been written about for more than 6,000 years of recorded human history.
The Dilemma’s prevalence throughout the world indicates that human beings are a major contributor. A second major factor is business design: how your processes are configured and operate determines your degree of success in addressing the Dilemma. A third big cause is our training and education processes which have transferred the Dilemma all through businesses and across cultures for over 60 centuries. To stop the Dilemma affecting your company you can use what we have learnt about the universe, people and business processes during the last 100 years.
[Read more…]Reliability Testing Sampling Plans Part-2 (PRST and Fixed Length Plans)
Dear friends, Institute of Quality and Reliability is happy to release this video on Reliability Testing Sampling Plans. In this is Part-2 of the video, Hemant Urdhwareshe has explained the Probability Ratio Sequential Test (PRST) and Fixed Length plans from MIL-Handbook-781. These include illustrated explanation of the plans and applicability.
We are sure, viewers will find this video useful!
Earlier, we released part 1 of the video, in which Hemant explained the concepts of sampling risks and operating characteristics (OC) curves.
We also suggest viewers to see our related videos on Hazard Rate and related concepts for better understanding of this video.
[Read more…]“Springing” into action with RCM…
In this video we touch on all 7 steps of the RCM process as we introduce one of the most important aspects of the application of RCM…asking the people who really know!
[Read more…]No data = No Reliability Program? Fallacy!
I have often heard employees complain they have no data to initiate a proper Reliability Improvement Program. This is not always true. And to no fault of theirs. They just don’t know how to use what they already have in terms of records. If you are running an operation, you should at least have production records – i.e. how much you are producing on a daily basis. If you don’t have this, then maybe you should not be in business at all. This article looks at ways to initiate a Reliability Program using the Barringer Process Reliability (BPR) methodology. The greatest advantage of this methodology is that it only requires productions records as an input. That is how many units of production the plant produces on a daily basis. For example, the barrels of crude oil processed per day in a refinery. Or the hectoliters of beer brewed in a brewery daily.
[Read more…]Why make a Histogram graph?
Background:
A histogram – is an approximate representation of the distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson:
[Read more…]FINESSE Fishbone: The Seven Bones of FINESSE
FINESSE is a fishbone (cause and effect) diagram, a mnemonic, and a mental model. FINESSE stands for Frame, Illustrate, Noise Reduction, Empathy, Structure, Synergy, and Ethics. The FINESSE fishbone diagram is peer-reviewed and battle-tested. Most importantly, it works.
Systems Thinking
As applied to effective communication, systems thinking is the cornerstone of FINESSE.
A system is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, each of which can affect the behavior or outcomes of the whole. One defining property of a system is that it provides a function that none of the parts can accomplish by themselves. The corollary is that a system is not the sum of the parts but the product of their interactions. [Read more…]
MTBF of a Human
“What’s the MTBF of a Human?” That’s a bit of a strange question?
Guest post by Adam Bahret
I ask this question in my Reliability 101 course. Why ask such a weird question? I’ll tell you why. Because MTBF is the worst, most confusing, crappy metric used in the reliability discipline. Ok maybe that is a smidge harsh, it does have good intentions. But the amount of damage that has been done by the misunderstanding it has caused is horrendous.
MTBF stands for “Mean Time Between Failure.” It is the inverse of failure rate. An MTBF of 100,000 hrs/failure is a failure rate of 1/100,000 fails/hr = .00001 fails/hr. Those are numbers, what does that look like in operation? [Read more…]
Impact of Maintenance Strategy on Production Efficiency and Quality: A Comprehensive Analysis
In the intricate landscape of modern manufacturing, the efficiency and quality of the production system are paramount. These two pillars underpin a company’s competitiveness, profitability, and customer satisfaction. A critical factor influencing these metrics is the maintenance strategy employed. This research delves into the profound impact of maintenance strategies on production efficiency and quality, exploring various approaches, their implications, and real-world case studies.
Trouble Shooting or Shooting Troubled Projects
Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The project hasn’t been going too well; KPI’s indicate problems, staff are demotivated, the customer is complaining, the schedule is in double digit revisions, rework and resubmissions reflect quality, and you may be on your third or even fourth project manager, and cash is all but flowing. Phew…what will happen next?
Despite these symptoms the project is allowed to struggle on until, one day, one brave soul has the courage to admit that enough is enough! The self-help applications of Band Aids and a couple of paracetamols obviously haven’t worked. Making an appointment to see your local GP or even a trip to the emergency room at this juncture may also be a tad late. It’s time for a surgeon or, in project terms, a troubleshooter.
[Read more…]What Does it take to Create a Reliability Culture?
Many managers think that high equipment reliability needs a reliability mindset. They think you need the right beliefs and values to get reliability. Reliability requires both correct thinking and correct behaviour, but behaviour is by far the most important. Your plant and machinery will deliver outstanding reliability only if their parts are not heavily stressed. Reliability is the result of properly doing the right actions to the parts in your machines—the right belief comes later, once the evidence is in. You make your machines and equipment reliable; you do not think them into being reliable with a good attitude. You do not need to have the right mindset to get highly reliable machines; you only need to deliver to your machinery parts the right environment for high reliability. If reliability is mostly the result of the behaviours that you do, it means that great reliability can be created everywhere.
[Read more…]MTBF Correlation vs. Causation: MIL-HDBK-217G
People claim poor correlation of predicted and observed MTBFs. That is understandable because handbook failure rates and fudge factors for quality and environment were derived from unknown populations or samples. People also claim there is no basis for applying statistics or probability to MTBF predictions. MTBF predictions use failure rate averages that lack statistical causation. Why not incorporate Paretos in MTBF predictions?
Paretos are fractions of equipment failures caused by each type of part or subsystem. They represent what really happens. Incorporating Paretos requires statistics to adjust MTBF predictions. That causes Paretos in MTBF predictions to match field Paretos. A 1992 ASQ Reliability Review article “MIL-HDBK-217G” proposed using observed Paretos to adjust handbook MTBF predictions with a “Reality” factor.
[Read more…]Reliability Sampling Plans Part-1 (Basic Concepts)
Dear friends, Institute of Quality and Reliability is happy to release this video on Reliability Sampling Plans. In this is Part-1 of the video, Hemant Urdhwareshe has explained the basic concepts in Sampling plans. These include Sampling Risks and Operating Characteristics. We are sure, viewers will find this video useful!
We will release part-2 of the video where Hemant will explain Fixed Length Reliability Test Plans and Sequential Test Plans (PRST).
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