Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
All articles listed in reverse chronological order.
We all use our work experience to a greater or lesser extent and often the most recent project is recalled as it is at the forefront of our minds. However, is it the most relevant if we try to adapt our most recent, and hopefully successful, experience to meet the current situation? [Read more…]
Plant compressed air waste control. Every compressed air system will eventually develop leaks from connectors and redundant pipelines. Compressed air is very expensive to make. It is necessary to institute regular inspections for air leaks and fix them immediately.
Keywords: pressure loss, energy loss, air compressor, pressure switch. [Read more…]
InnoCentive CEO Dwayne Spradlin wrote in this article about how many companies in a rush to develop something new and innovative try to solve a problem that they want to solve rather than the problem the customer wants to be solved. He quotes Albert Einstein who once said
If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.
As companies around the globe look to improve equipment reliability I can’t help but think of the Technicians and Craftspeople I meet after a conference presentation. As they step up to introduce themselves to comment on the presentation some will often say “I really liked your presentation but I don’t think our management would ever support a program like this. What you are doing makes a lot of sense but we just don’t have the people and our operations managers don’t understand maintenance and reliability.” [Read more…]
Needs and How to use an Expert for your Project
Finding an expert for your project is important. Knowing what traits they need and how to employ them will lead you to improved opportunity for success. We at Perry’s Solutions, Inc. have these key traits and exist as a business because we are often being used in this role – previously as a corporate employee and now as a consultant. [Read more…]
Have you tried to upgrade / replace a piece of equipment due to the high cost of maintenance? What about having the process stopped by procurement because they are not aligned with the high upfront cost?
While there is a generally a common goal of ensuring the long-term success of an organization, the approach is not always cohesive. An asset management program is there to ensure an integrated and cohesive approach is in place. This cohesive approach ensures the organization is working towards a common goal. [Read more…]
Houston Texas is one of the few local governments in the United States with an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) based risk assessment approach. This policy was reviewed and updated in 2016. This was the latest step in the city’s use of risk assessment.
From 1996 to 2004, the city outsourced risk assessment. The assessment was performed every five years. Beginning in 2009, the city’s audit department took over the assessment. This article discusses the risk assessment process used by the City of Houston.
Metering and dosing pump operation. Any positive displacement pump can be used as a metering or dosing pump. The purpose of these pumps is to inject a known volume of liquid into a process stream. The primary requirement is that over a given period of time the pump consistently delivers the same amount of liquid. Keyword: gear pump, piston pump, helical rotor pump, diaphragm pump, peristaltic (hose) pump, additive, dosing rate. [Read more…]
In a previous article, we defined design for six sigma (DFSS) as a thought process focused on maximizing customer value and minimizing cost.
More specifically, DFSS is used to reduce variability in product performance (thereby increasing value), using analytical models and our knowledge of manufacturing variability to enable specification limits on difficult-to-manufacture tolerances to be increased (thereby reducing cost).
The formal definition of reliability is …
“The probability that an item will perform its intended function under stated conditions, for either a specified interval or over its useful life.”
The three key terms in this statement are
Extended bogy testing builds on test to bogy (TTB), discussed in a prior article. TTB focused on calculating the number (N) of parts tested to one life bogy, with 0 failures allowed, to a specified reliability (R) and confidence (C) levels.
Using TTB to verify conformance to high reliability and confidence targets requires very large sample sizes, increasing testing cost. The capacity to test large samples may require large facility capital expenditures. Also, the zero failures allowed paradigm removes the opportunity to learn about product failure modes and the opportunity to improve the product through design or manufacturing process changes.
This article focuses on extended bogy test plans as an alternative to TTB.
Imagine you are not feeling well and you go to a doctor. When you sit down in the doctor’s office, he doesn’t even look at you. Instead, he has a book opened on the desk and starts reading it aloud. You sit there without being examined, listening to a list of medicines, activities, exercises and diet changes. The doctor then looks up and says that you need to do all of them. Take all the medicines. Change all your activities. Start doing all the exercises. And completely change your diet. [Read more…]
Design of Experiments classes always talk about Resolution III and higher designs. But what is a Resolution II design? We show what it is – and show that it is actually used quite a bit! Should be used with caution as it does not provide understanding.
www.PerrysSolutions.com [Read more…]
All stakeholders have different perspectives, and as a result, place value on different aspects of an asset. Trying to balance all the requirements is not an easy task. Whether the requirements are performance, cost, or the level of risk. Keep in mind, that performance can not only be uptime or OEE, but the beauty of a park, or the condition of a road. This is where asset management comes in. [Read more…]
You’ve started a new project; or joined one that’s up and running or it’s nearing closure – and it’s going well. With no problems to speak of, it’s business as usual; so stick to the plan and it will be all right in the end ‘cos nothing can go wrong.
Or perhaps there are problems; but all projects have problems! It’s not your problem as the bid team, planning team, or those awkward stakeholders and ever present over demanding clients can be blamed.
The project will eventually get finished if it’s on, or off, the rails. The project is ‘just a job’ and management just carry on clocking-in and clocking-out regardless of the situation. [Read more…]
