Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Dr. Taguchi was an engineer, not a statistician. He considered the ability of design of experiments (DOE) to identify and reduce sources of variability, yet needed a system that did not require a statistician to implement.
Dr. Taguchi proposed a few considerations for those applying the Taguchi design of experiments approach. [Read more…]
We are all familiar with the base of our car warranties being in both months and miles. 
Some of that is that they want a definitive end to all warranty periods. But another reason is you can’t just boil down all aging factors to one stress. In a product development program, we are always under pressure to keep all activities as short as possible. Accelerated Life Testing ALT can loose almost all of it’s value when not executed with care. [Read more…]
Analyzing and visualizing data that is related to equipment wear-out (fatigue stage) over a specific time span is a challenge. Analyzing systems, equipment and components exposed to spectrum loading as opposed to uniform cyclical loading that span years or decades or centuries requires a special approach. Think of roads, bridges and other assets with long life spans that are susceptible to wear out mechanisms caused by external and internal loads, varying load durations, temperature swings and corrosion. [Read more…]
20 years ago, I began my first assignment as a Reliability Engineer at Eastman Kodak’s Photo Chemical facility in Rochester, New York. Now, I understand that I just lost several people who began reading this article by using the words “photo” and “chemical” in the same sentence, but 20 years ago, most photography was still a chemical process.
When I started in this job, the position of Reliability Engineer was a new thing to our company. As a result, I got little direction regarding what a Reliability Engineer should or could do to improve reliability in the area I was assigned. 20 years later, I would like to share a list of the 10 things any Reliability Engineer can do to improve reliability at their site. [Read more…]
Taguchi may be best known for the variation of design of experiments that bear his name. Yet the impact of his work is felt across the product life cycle and all of the quality field.
Building on Deming’s observations that 85% of poor quality is due to faulty processes and only 15% due to the worker, Taguchi focused on creating robust processes.
A robust system is one that tolerates the daily and seasonal variations of the environment, machine wear, and equipment part-to-part variation, etc. A robust system operating in the range of real world conditions. [Read more…]
“What gets measured, gets done” and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are critical to measuring the performance of the organization and business. So what specifically is a KPI? According to the The Professionals Guide To Maintenance And Reliability Terminology
This video clip looks like a disaster but is actually a visualization of precision reliability engineering………. right after a disaster . [Read more…]
Guest Post by Ed Perkins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Risk Management is like vitamins; we know it is good for us, but we don’t always want to take it.
Why? Human nature is to avoid discomfort and unpleasantness. What does this have to do with risk? What is the real impact of consequence of a Risk? Why do we not want to face it? If you think about it, it is the underlying of risk – it is Fear. [Read more…]
Equipment Identification tags save time. Identifying equipment for operators and tradesmen will save time, reduce errors and promote accurate record keeping. Equipment identification involves putting a unique number and a unique written description onto a machine.
Keywords: CMMS, computerised maintenance management system, planning, breakdown repair, reporting faults, equipment tags, catalogue. [Read more…]
This is the first in a nine-part series of articles. This first one will lay out what I think are essential characteristics of an RCA program. The other articles will follow up on each of the items in some detail.
Being able to communicate the improvements with Maintenance Planning & Scheduling with finance and senior leaders can be difficult. The maintenance team sees a high PM Compliance, or more work being complete, but what does that mean for the business in tangible benefits? This is where the communication between maintenance and finance breakdown. By being able to identify and link the maintenance improvements to financial returns, maintenance will be able to generate support for current and future projects. [Read more…]
Experiences with magnetic (magdrive) pumps. Magnetic drive pumps come in three varieties – canned motor pumps, all metal pumps and plastic lined metal pumps. They are sealless and cannot leak into the environment. Long, repair- free service life depends on recognising the limitations of these pumps. This article covers issues with using direct mounted, lined magdrive pumps experienced ‘in the field’.
Keyword: separation liners, chemical compatibility, sediment, particulate. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Ed Perkins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
One area that does not receive much emphasis in risk management is the human factor. In risk assessments, risk events, likelihoods and consequences, vulnerabilities are the usual focus. People are viewed as ‘weak links’ in risk prevention, but what about risk mitigation? Your risk planning depends on people to respond when an event occurs. How good is their risk decision-making under stress? There is the weak link.
In 1996, IEEE published a book on “Probabilistic Risk Assessment and Management for Engineers and Scientists” by Kumamoto and Henley[1]. This book is about using probability to assess reliability and safety risks in an industrial environment. The book introduces some interesting concepts, such as risk perception and ‘Human Reliability’. [Read more…]
Many of our customers (internal/external) trust us when we say that a Weibull analysis is the best approach to understanding what the data set is telling us. We then take their data set, do something mysterious where no one can see us, and then present these accurate predictions as to what is going to happen with a given population of the product at some future date. [Read more…]
Leadership is not a position or title within an organization. It is an attitude.
You’ve seen the internet meme’s about the difference between leadership and management. There is a difference and while not everyone is going to be in top management, everyone can (and should) be a leader.
As a reliability professional, you are conveniently looked to for leadership. You are expected to use your knowledge and skill to solve problems. To help teams solve problems. To improve the reliability performance of your system and across your industry. [Read more…]