on Maintenance Reliability

I have told my own children for years now that I didn’t find the job that I loved until I was around 35. Truth is I was around 35 when I figured out what I enjoyed but I didn’t really enjoy doing it until around 4 years later when I had the courage to leave the large company I had worked at for 19 years and start a business of my own.  Working on my own I developed a product, had to market and sell that product to build a brand name.  I had to make sure that every customer engagement was a shining example of success and efficiency because I not only wanted more business, I wanted my customers to tell everyone they knew that when it came to RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) I was not only the best bargain, I was one of the best in the world. [Read more…]

Clean, Green & Reliable – Improving Equipment Reliability and Reducing Energy in Manufacturing Facilities

I first became interested in manufacturing reliability nearly twenty years ago working as a maintenance mechanic who had a personal interest in improving the reliability of individual assets by searching through our maintenance history for areas where we were spending the most time and money in regard to emergency/demand work orders.  Using the history we had in our database we used the 80/20 approach to identify the 20% of our assets where we spent nearly 80% of our maintenance budget.  Once we identified a system or asset to work on we would use a cause-map or root cause analysis to identify the potential causes of our equipment failures, understanding these causes we would then look to identify potential redesigns to eliminate or reduce the frequency of equipment failures. [Read more…]

10 Sure Signs Your Company Just Doesn’t Understand Equipment Reliability!

In honor of the fast approaching holiday season, let’s start the week off with a laugh or two, I have listed some of the sure-fire signs that your company may not be ready for this reliability stuff. I have to say that in my first 5 years working as a consultant, I wasn’t prepared for some of the things folks would tell me while working on site, and there were times I actually laughed when I should have just bitten my tongue. I once asked a manager if their equipment was reliable; he pondered the question a minute and replied, “It is some of the time.”

Tell me: how do you not laugh when someone says that with a straight face? [Read more…]

5 Tips on How To Maintain Reputation & Integrity

My father taught me at a young age that your name is everything and if you want to be successful in life you have to ensure that when someone hears your name in conversation or reads your name in print that the first thing they think is positive.

The world hasn’t changed from the time he told me that over 40 years ago, in fact today it’s even more critical because we now have the internet and social media.

Good news travels fast.

Bad news travels 100 times faster!

Understanding this, here are 5 tips on what your company can do to build and maintain its reputation and integrity. [Read more…]