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Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
I no sooner accepted the meeting notice for a public training event in Europe that my mind began to race. The dates were setting off bells in my head for some reason so I pulled out my cell phone and checked my calendar.
The only thing now scheduled for those dates were the training events in Europe yet for some reason I still could not let go of the thought that I had something else scheduled for those dates. [Read more…]
The importance of reliability education in a product development program cannot be understated. A design initiative with mechanical content can be created solely by the mechanical team, same for electrical, and software. These other disciplines will create a better product if they collaborate from the start, but this is not necessary. A successful product can still be created if they intersect later. Reliability doesn’t have this flexibility. Reliability tools don’t have a deliverable like a function or a feature. They are an assist for the function or feature during the process of creation. As an assist discipline, it only works if implemented while the other processes are in motion. Attempting to add it after the design has been completed requires a deconstruction of the previous work if improvements are needed. [Read more…]
Why do you think FMEA procedure requires effects to be taken to the system or end user? Why not describe the consequence only at the local level. If a bolt in a complex system fails, the parts that the bolt was clamping together may come apart. Isn’t that enough?
“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.”
Norman Cousins
If you have properly selected and implemented your CMMS, you have the ability to truly make significant improvements in your operation. This is made a reality by using the data within the CMMS to make data driven decisions instead of intuition or feelings. This ensures the business resources are spent on the most important and strategic issues for the business.
In order to leverage the data within your CMMS, you have to ensure the data can be captured and reported easily. This is usually done during the implementation phase. [Read more…]
Changing out dust bags in reverse pulse dust collectors. The dust bags in pulse jet dust collectors require replacement if damaged and leaking or if blinded by the product. This work procedure indicates the process and methods to use to change-out and replace dust bags and cages in a dust collector. Keywords: tube plate, bag collar, air manifold, air plenum.
Value Added Auditing(VAA) is risk based auditing. Or another way to think about it is VAA is analytical auditing where the sponsor and auditee get valuable information to improve their operations and become more competitive.
So, what can VAA do for you? [Read more…]
The risk management framework in ISO 31000 provides a flexible approach to create the right program for your organization. The document doesn’t provide advice or wisdom, so you have to supply that yourself.
The details of the risk management program or specific framework in your organization includes policies, procedures, analysis, and reporting, yet it also has to work within the context of your organization.
Based on the work of Greg Hutchins in ISO 31000: Enterprise Risk Management here are four considerations to supplement your wisdom as you design and implement your program. [Read more…]
Frequently, data collection is the most time consuming and expensive part of a project. Consequently, people work with small sample data. There is too little data to plot a histogram, so the analysis assumes the underlying population is normally distributed.
A frequent error is to assume the sample average and standard deviation are the population normal mean and standard deviation. When small sample sizes are being analyzed, these assumptions lead to estimation errors.
Methods to make better estimates are discussed in this article. [Read more…]
Condition monitoring can help to predict failures and anticipate to them, however it doesn’t always work like this — in the best case scenario we might be able to identify early phase failures or incipient stage of damage mechanisms or failure mechanisms, but if we use it in the wrong manner it will just be a reactive tool.
More than 80% of the failure modes could be randomly patterned. Although performance, vibration, temperature or lube oil condition are being monitored, many of the failures are still not directly predicted by only these conditions. [Read more…]
I just returned from the IEEE ASQ Accelerated Stress Test and Reliability Conference, held this year in Austin, Texas. It’s always been a great conference. There is such a good comradery and sharing of knowledge when a large group comes together on such a specific topic. I meet a lot of great people from many different industries, all with great experience to share. [Read more…]
In this Q and A article, a reader asks an interesting question about whether or not to update a System FMEA, when making subsequent changes to lower-level items. This is an excellent question, and shows the reader has good insight into the application of FMEA.
“Judge a man by his questions, not his answers.”
Voltaire
Most organizations only use 50% of their CMMS’s capabilities. This is for a variety of reasons, but one of the largest reasons, is that the CMMS was not setup, configured or implemented correctly. If the implementation of the CMMS was not done properly, the usability and information in the CMMS limits its potential.
How can you prevent the implementation from failing or delivering sub-par results? There are a few ways to ensure a successful CMMS implementation. This post will cover the 2 main ways to ensure a successful implementation. [Read more…]
This quarter we would talk a little about bronzes, their properties and applications. One of our readers said they occasionally hear people refer to a brass bush when in fact they want a bronze bush and could we write something on this. Lets also look at the range of materials one may come across:
VUCA is an acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. VUCA is the driver of most disruption in business.
I believe we live in VUCA time. And, VUCA is changing how business is done: [Read more…]
As anyone with a hand in running a household knows, it’s important to keep a stockpile of key items. You certainly don’t want to find out the hard way that you’re on your last square of toilet paper. But in the case of a facility like a power plant, a missing spare part could be more than just a nuisance—it could be downright expensive. [Read more…]