Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

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Increase Productivity and Competitiveness with MRO Technology – Part 1

Increase Productivity and Competitiveness with MRO Technology – Part 1

In search of excellence in MRO Materials Management (indirect materials / spare parts), I have noticed two curious facts.

First, even in developed countries, industrial companies and providers of ERPs (enterprise management systems) are technologically very backward in this specialty.

Second, those very little companies or experts who developed differentiated technology keep it safe guarded as a trade secret.

This exposure results in considerable accumulation of knowledge and expertise, and a unique set of observations and conclusions which certainly could not fail to be shared with the concerned community.  [Read more…]

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The 5 Levels of Maintenance Scheduling

airline schedule board
Photo by Qfamily

Making Maintenance Scheduling Simple

Coordinating all of the maintenance activities within a site can be overwhelming. A schedule is supposed to help reduce the sense of being overwhelmed. But why is it that when trying to pull together a schedule for the next shift, day or week, it always seems to be a mad dash?

Often times the maintenance scheduling process is not well defined or thought out, and this leads to being overwhelmed. It also projects an image to our operational partners that we do not have our house in order. This image may or may not play a role in having our Maintenance windows moved or cancelled, further our scheduling issues. [Read more…]

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How Well Do Risk Assessments Inform Decision Makers?

How Well Do Risk Assessments Inform Decision Makers?

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

Sometimes, it seems that every newspaper edition, news broadcast or news website carries yet another story about a disaster – an event that might have been avoided by better decision making.

But do we ask whether such decisions were informed by risk assessments?  And if so, how effective were those risk assessments for informing the decision makers about the risks?  Which techniques were used in the risk assessments? Were the results presented in a way that made sense to the decision makers?  Do risk assessors follow a good process and so achieve some consistency in results, or do they just get lucky? [Read more…]

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Differential Pressure Transmitters

Differential Pressure Transmitters

The differential pressure transmitter (PT) is used to detect a head of pressure.

The sensing element is connected to the process by pipework and flexes in proportion to the pressure. The resulting distortion produces an electric signal that is amplified and converted to a value on a read-out.

Keywords: pressure sensor, strain gauge, tank level, process pressure, pressure difference.  [Read more…]

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Seminar: HALT Techniques and connecting to program objectives

Seminar: HALT Techniques and connecting to program objectives

This is the third session from the Annual Apex Ridge Reliability Seminar held in Boston.

In this session, I discuss the methodology of HALT and how to connect it with program tools and objectives.

The philosophy of HALT is often misunderstood simply due to its name and acronym, “Highly Accelerated Life Testing” (HALT).

It is not an accelerated life test, it’s really not even a test. HALT is a process of increasing stress on a design to induce failures for the purpose of learning about the design and improving its robustness.

It’s a discovery process. [Read more…]

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The Connection of Reliability and Customer Expectations

The Connection of Reliability and Customer Expectations

Customers Experience Product Reliability in Real Time

In a customer’s mind, the product works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work as expected it has failed. This may or may not be a reliability problem.

A customer or someone using your product brings a set of expectations to the experience. The range of expectations may range from very little to very high functioning, value production, and durability.

Failures are defined by customers.

In part, this is the functional capability, the operating within specifications, and the durability. The customer’s definition of reliability may or may not follow the design specifications.

It is the comparison of what should happen to what does happen. [Read more…]

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Safety Is a Lifestyle

Safety Is a Lifestyle

Something to think about in a day and age when most companies post their mission, vision, and goals on the company web page.

Do we really stand behind these statements and demonstrate the behaviors that clearly show we are willing to do what it takes to create a safe workplace?

If you have ever questioned this, consider two questions I ask RCM Teams as we analyze failure modes that impact health, safety, and environment: [Read more…]

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Use and Environmental Profiles

Use and Environmental Profiles

Use and Environmental profiles

Did you know that hot air doesn’t rise when there is no or very little gravity?

The electronics used to steer an oil exploration drill head 5 miles deep in the earth experiences 200°C sulfuric acid immersion along with continuous 50,000G shocks.

I used to think the environment under the hood a car was difficult. [Read more…]

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Is Using MTBF Habit Forming?

Is Using MTBF Habit Forming?

With Enough Reinforcement, MTBF Use Becomes a Habit

A habit you should examine and stop.

At first, I wondered if MTBF use was addictive, yet thought that comparison would belittle the very serious issues of those with addictive behaviors. Using MTBF does not generally cause a person harm, while poor decision based on it might harm the organization.

I find those that regularly employ MTBF do so without thinking about it too much. If someone mentions reliability, they think MTBF. Automatically.

Habits help us reduce cognitive load and make our life simpler. For example, do you need to focus on how to put on your shoes every morning? I’m personally happy my habit skills allow me to remember how to drive safely without the intense focus required the first time I got behind the wheel.

Let’s examine how to tell if someone has the Habit of MTBF use and what you can do about it. [Read more…]

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Linking RCM Facilitation with Effective Maintenance Program Implementation

Linking RCM Facilitation with Effective Maintenance Program Implementation

Most of us would agree that there is a new global economy being forged right now in the manufacturing sector.

Inevitably, this translates to a renewed focus on transferring more business value to the customer. Central to this will be linking RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) facilitation with effective maintenance program implementations.

In short, the difference between what we, as RCM Facilitators, have been doing in the past and what we will be doing from now on is: a strong emphasis on what tactics are required in order to achieve the failure management strategies an RCM Team defines.

That is, we will conduct the decisions phase of the analysis somewhat differently. (i.e. The 3rd pass through when walking-the-dog in an RCM analysis) [Read more…]

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The Black Hole of Maintenance

black hole image
Photo by Steve Jurvetson

Where Maintenance Requests Go But Never Appear to Escape From- the Backlog.

This is exactly what some operations staff think of when we tell them to submit a work request.

It means that they do not think that the work will be completed, or it will after it no longer matters to them.

What if you called the cable company and reported an issue? You would expect prompt service, and would expect that you would not have to chase them down to do the work correct? Maintenance is a service organization that enables the successful operation of the business.

The business shouldn’t have to chase us down or wonder if we will repair the equipment. [Read more…]

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Seminar: Reliability Testing Outputs as Program Inputs

Seminar: Reliability Testing Outputs as Program Inputs

This is the second session from the Annual Apex Ridge Reliability Seminar held in Boston.

The session focus was how to best use specialized testing technique outputs as effective program inputs. There are simple steps for hooking the information from the test data into the correct program management decision points.

Very often opportunities are missed in programs by aligning testing outputs with incorrect program phases. [Read more…]

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Basics: Project Risk Management

Basics: Project Risk Management

Basics: Project Risk Management

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

The project management body of knowledge generally focuses on scope management, time management, and cost management. Risk management generally comes in at about 8th place out of the ten.

However, risk management is potentially the biggest part of the project management planning process.

Often organizations assign resources, dollars and time to project objectives to know exactly when the project is going to finish, how much it is going to cost and what resources are needed.

The problem with doing this is they have not identified risks. [Read more…]