Articles

Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

5 Tips to Kick-Start Continuous Improvement Implementation

I’m currently working with a large company on a continuous improvement project that started a few months ago with a detailed analysis on some of their critical assets. Within one weeks’ time we had a list of over 250 recommendations that needed to be implemented and performed in order to recognize an improved and sustained level of productivity that would provide a quick return on investment and lower the unit cost of their product.

Two months ago I was highly confident they would jump right on completing the recommended tasks. [Read more…]

by Carl S. Carlson 7 Comments

Understanding FMEA Failure Modes: Part 2

Problems and Solutions

Whether you are new to FMEA or more experienced, these problems will challenge your skills. The intermediate/advanced problem uses an actual airline disaster to challenge readers with an FMEA problem, and practice identifying the elements of an FMEA.

[Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Confidence and “Confidence”

Confidence is used in reliability to give a probabilistic value to the likelihood that a taken measurement will represent a full population. It is determined by measuring a sample size and then using a selected statistical distribution table to translate to a likelihood. Emotional confidence is how one feels about making a decision based on known information at a specific point in time. Similar but different. But it is important to connect them. This is why. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 1 Comment

The Right Way to Select the Right CMMS

Selecting the Right CMMS can mean the Difference between Success and Failure

Imagine spending $100,000s or $1,000,000s on a software package that is supposed to improve your maintenance operation. A few years later you still have not seen any improvement and you did not generate any return on investment with the software. This happens every day when businesses select the wrong the CMMS.

Selecting a CMMS can be an overwhelming task, especially when so much rides upon the success of CMMS. You can read reviews and select a CMMS based on those, but the CMMS may not be the right one for you. The CMMS has to be fit for your business / operation or you will not see the right results. Thankfully there are two ways to select the right CMMS. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 1 Comment

Converting from Oiled to Greased Shaft Roller Bearings

This article covers the conversion of the shaft bearings on a basket centrifuge from oil-bath to grease lubrication. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins 2 Comments

#2 Best Job — Risk Manager

“One Thing is Certain: 2017 Will Be the Year of Uncertainty for CEO’s’”

Shouted a recent Wall Street Journal article.[1]

Why?

Let’s look at the reasons at why we live in VUCA time (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).

President Trump is disrupting business rules and business models.
Technological change is increasing.
Mass immigration is resulting in political divisions.
Climate change is real and increasing.
Globalization benefits are unclear due to job and work transference.

[Read more…]

by Les Warrington 3 Comments

What is the Best Reliability Training for Me?

Reliability engineering, analysis, management, testing… − Where do I get the skills and training to be really effective? University or College? In-house? Conferences? Webinars? Software or Equipment Suppliers? Journals? A colleague? − Do I need a Certification? − Do I need an integrated program, or only specific stand-alone techniques?

Everyone has to start somewhere. And if we are going to be smart about it, we should examine our needs and make a plan… [Read more…]

by Dennis Craggs Leave a Comment

A Primer on Probability Distributions

The most common types of engineering data are measurements. There can be a few, thousands, or millions of data points to analyze. Without analytic tools, one can get lost in the data.

This article presents

Dotplots
Data if frequently clustered about a central value and displays variation.
Frequency histograms
Distribution characteristics
Normal Distributions

[Read more…]

by Perry Parendo Leave a Comment

Prototypes and Learning

Prototypes Help You Learn About Your Product

To reduce schedules, prototype cycles are often randomly slashed. Eventually the time and resources are needed and create cost and schedule over runs. We need to recognize that prototypes exist to help us learn about our product. If we use a risk based test strategy approach, we can test at lower levels to gain the required understanding. Then, we can confirm our learning with the higher level, system prototypes.

Just 4 minutes and 19 second long. To me, a prototype does include bench testing at lower levels as long as it includes the relevant functionality to represent the area for learning. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

The Top 5 Ways to Ruin a Web-Meeting

Just for fun a few months back I wrote a blog on what I listed as the 5 worst inventions in last 10 years. I looked over that list today and was astonished to find out that I did not list the Web-based meeting as one of these inventions. Those who have known me for years know that I really despise non-value added work and over the last 5 years according to my calculations I have wasted a full 6 months of time attending web meetings. Time that could have been spent working on great idea or invention the entire world has been waiting for while I was listening to someone read through a list of agenda items that could have been sent in an email.

The result however is a blog post on the 5 critical mistakes of Web Meetings! (Please be sure to read on for my 5 rules for web-based meetings!) [Read more…]

by Carl S. Carlson 2 Comments

Understanding FMEA Failure Modes – Part 1

Why Describing the Mode of Failure is Essential

Do you know why we ask for the “mode” of failure when performing FMEAs? This article will provide theory and practical examples of defining failure modes, and highlight an application tip that can improve your FMEA effectiveness.

“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that don’t work”
Thomas Edison

[Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

My favorite reliability phrases

I like the occasional good catchphrase. I typically tend to speak in analogies and anecdotes and many of my customers and colleagues have suggested documenting them. So on occasion, I will write them in my notebook. Here are a few. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 2 Comments

What a CMMS Can Do For You?

The Advantages to a Properly Configured and Implemented CMMS can be Numerous.

Managing all the information and data in maintenance can be overwhelming, yet it is critical to the success of your organization. If you are not yet using a CMMS, or thinking of changing it, you could be in for some major improvements.

A recent study by Software Advice concluded that a cloud based CMMS can offer three main benefits to organizations. These benefits are the type of benefits that will make a difference in your organization and deliver bottom line results. These three benefits are: [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Temperature Sensing Elements

A Brief Introduction to Temperature Sensing Elements

The temperature of a process is an important measure to know as it indicates whether or not the process is in control.

The selection of the temperature sensing method depends on

the required temperature range
the measuring accuracy required
the speed of response needed from the control system
the process chemicals and conditions

[Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Critical Success Factors for Risk Based Thinking

The critical success factors for ISO 9001:2015 RBT are much like Six Sigma and lean. Our hard lessons learned over the last dozen years migrating organizations from quality to ERM include: [Read more…]