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The SR-71 Blackbird RCM Fallacy

The SR-71 Blackbird RCM Fallacy

Reliability by prevention vs. reliability by failure analysis

Here is a story of multimillion dollar aircraft failures that could have been prevented by spending $25. But no one did the risk analysis right using a financial model of the consequences. It’s also the story of why RCM is a poor maintenance strategy selection methodology. RCM will send you to financial disaster and you won’t even know it. Learn how to decide when doing preventive maintenance is far better for business success than doing the on-condition maintenance recommended by business-destroying RCM analysis.

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Criticality Map is Vital to Risk Management

Criticality Map is Vital to Risk Management

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Criticality Map, a strategic top-down analytical tool that I developed and used, is vital for risk management, assurance mapping, and regulatory compliance. It is a great simplified tool for effectively guiding management action and resource allocation and as a sanity check.

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The Softer Side of Success: Unlocking the Power of Soft Skills

The Softer Side of Success: Unlocking the Power of Soft Skills

In the world of reliability and quality engineering, technical expertise and domain knowledge have always been highly valued. Engineers are expected to possess a strong foundation of technical skills to excel in their roles. However, in today’s rapidly evolving workplace, it has become increasingly evident that technical ability alone is not enough to guarantee success. The modern engineering professional must recognize and embrace the importance of soft skills to complement their analytical skills. 

In this blog post, we will dive into the significance of soft skills in the workplace and how they can enhance the effectiveness and success of reliability and quality engineering professionals.

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With Weibull, What Shape Value Should your Product Have for Better Reliability?

With Weibull, What Shape Value Should your Product Have for Better Reliability?

The LinkedIn ASQ RRD group published this question from a reliability manager. Replies included:

  • “Beta (shape parameter) should be close to 1 for more useful life. But it should not be less than 1.”
  • “For Beta you would like to get as close to one as possible.”
  • “A Shape of 1 within warranty is good.”
  • “It depends on B2B, yes it should be close to 1 that’s within warranty.

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1884 – Depreciation and Maintenance Cannot be Separated

1884 – Depreciation and Maintenance Cannot be Separated

In the 19th century, factories and mills were major concentrations of capital. Manufacturing completed for investment money, and business cases could be as closely examined as any other risky investment. In 1884, Edwin Matheson wrote about how maintenance affected accounting and business prospects in The Depreciation of Factories and their Valuation. Matheson’s book became the basis of modern views of depreciation.

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How Conservative and Prudent can a Risk Decision be? – Practical uses of Confidence Boundaries

How Conservative and Prudent can a Risk Decision be? – Practical uses of Confidence Boundaries

Introducing confidence boundaries

Confidence boundaries can be confusing to reliability engineering practitioners and their audience. Yet, they can play an important role in the risk-based decision-making process. When building statistical models, there is always uncertainty around the model because it is usually based on a smaller sample of the studied population. The confidence interval is the range of values you expect your model to fall between a certain percentage of the time if you run your experiment again or re-sample the population similarly. For example, using a 90% confidence boundary, one would expect 90% of the records to fall between the upper and lower confidence boundaries. As a rule of thumb, the more data you have, the more precise the model and the narrower the confidence boundaries.  In essence, if we have an infinite amount of data, we will end up with a perfect model. However, this is never the case. Confidence boundaries help establish the accuracy of the model and also provide some information on the validity of the data.

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An Excel – VBA Driven Weibull Calculator

An Excel – VBA Driven Weibull Calculator

Every Reliability Engineer will be familiar with the Weibull Analysis. Most of us even have an Excel template laying around that we refer to!

The problem is, that when we have to handle Suspended data (e.g. components that haven’t failed yet at time of observation), the Excel sheet must use VBA in the background if the user wants a “single-button” tool.

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The 10 Habits of Highly Effective Reliability-AM Professionals

The 10 Habits of Highly Effective Reliability-AM Professionals

Over thirty years ago, Steven R. Covey, renowned author and business management guru, introduced to us The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which presented an approach to being effective in attaining personal or business goals by aligning to what he called “True North” principles based on character ethics. This book has become a best seller, a must-read, and has sold 40 million copies worldwide.

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Find Me the Statistics that I Like to Believe the Most …

Find Me the Statistics that I Like to Believe the Most …

It looks like 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Along with all the cyclones, hurricanes, floods and bushfires we have already had. Those who study and take climate change seriously unanimously agree that man-made changes to the environment are causing the climate to change so fast that mother nature will struggle to keep up. 

And for the minority (yes, it is a minority as has been confirmed by many surveys and studies across the world), their arguments against climate change go something like this …

It might not be because of us …

… so it’s definitely not because of us.

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Plant Wellness Way Methods Summary

Plant Wellness Way Methods Summary

 Let a Plant Wellness Way EAM System-of-Reliability halve your Annual Maintenance Costs 

The Plant Wellness Way is business paradigm to create world-class performance and results in any operation by the correct selection and use of engineering, operating, maintenance, and reliability strategy and practices. 

The six IONICS steps are used to develop lifecycle asset management, reliability improvement and maintenance management strategy and activities needed for endless operational excellence. Simply identify where you are in the above process map, come in at that point, and then continue on through the process to the point where your answers are available.

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Strategic Partnerships with Shared Risk Management

Strategic Partnerships with Shared Risk Management

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Strategic alliances are a vital tool to driving growth by enabling access to external capabilities. They are collaborations, partnerships, or joint ventures whereby organisations, or partners, work together for a common purpose to achieve a common business benefit or purpose.

As much as strategic alliances are an important tool to drive growth and deliver needed capabilities, they are not without their challenges and risks.

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