Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

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Overview of Reliability Engineering

An Overview of Reliability Engineering Tasks and Application from a Product Design and Plant Operation Perspective

A Guest Post by Lennox Bennett

Abstract / Summary

In deciding what industry you want to work as a reliability engineer, it is always good to have an understanding of what functional responsibilities you are expected to execute as a part of the job function.

You should always carefully review the job description then compare your knowledge acquired through training and on-the-job experience and ask yourself if you are capable of performing functions required without additional training.

Furthermore, we need to consider our technical limitations and at the same time be aware that the job description provided may not exclusive represents all the tasks you are expected to perform. [Read more…]

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Managing Failures Before They Occur

Managing Failures Before They Occur

Welcome to part eight of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry. [Read more…]

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Unfired Pressure Vessel Inspections

Unfired Pressure Vessel Inspections

Pressure vessels must be regularly inspected and be maintained in a safe operating condition.

New Australian laws stipulate that all pressure vessels must have a Hazard Level rating (‘A’ highest to ‘E’ lowest) which reflects the vessel’s safety risk (see AS3920.1).

The higher the risk the more stringent the requirements for operating and inspecting the vessel.

Keywords: receiver, non-destructive testing, internal inspection. [Read more…]

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Black Swans, Grey Swans, White Swans

Black Swans, Grey Swans, White Swans

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

We hear a lot about things that are being called “Black Swans” today thanks to Nassim Taleb and his extremely successful book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” now in its second edition. I have written several articles centering on the “Black Swan” phenomenon; defending, clarifying and analyzing the nature of “Black Swan” events. And, I am finding that wildly improbable events are becoming perfectly routine events. [Read more…]

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Planning a Taguchi L4 Array Experiment

One of the simplest ways to learn design of experiments, DOE, is to just give it a try.

The Taguchi  DOE approach uses orthogonal arrays. This subset of the possible approaches to DOE simplifies the process to create and analyze experiments.

Let’s plan a simple experiment using the Taguchi DOE approach. [Read more…]

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Another Way to Spot Someone Confusing MTBF

Another Way to Spot Someone Confusing MTBF

Vintage machine image, without confusing MTBFYet Another Way to Misunderstand MTBF

In a Q&A forum, the response to a question concerning failure rate and repair times for a redundant system demonstrated yet another person confusing MTBF with something it is not.

The responder to the question mentioned the reference to repair time implied the need for MTBF as a metric. Then went on to describe MTBF as the duration of repair time, which should not change given a redundant system over a non-redundant system. [Read more…]

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Support Systems Improve Efficiency

Support Systems Improve Efficiency

Welcome to part seven of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry. [Read more…]

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Sixty Percent (60%) of Quality Issues are Caused by Design Faults

Sixty Percent (60%) of Quality Issues are Caused by Design Faults

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

In order to improve business performance, manufacturing companies need to reduce the levels of non-conformance and attendant failure costs stemming from poor product design and development. Failure costs generally make up the largest cost category in a manufacturing business and include those attributable to rework, scrap, warranty claims, product recall and product liability claims. This represents lost profit to a business and as a result, it is the area in which the greatest improvement in competitiveness can be made. [Read more…]

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Effective Performance Management

Effective Performance Management

Welcome to part six of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry. [Read more…]

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Why is ISO 31000 a Must Know ISO Standard?

Why is ISO 31000 a Must Know ISO Standard?

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

More ISO management systems are incorporating RBT and risk, so the standard is becoming a ‘must know’ standard. ISO 31000 risk management principles, risk management framework, and risk management process are the preferred tools to use with ISO management systems because ISO 31000: [Read more…]

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Building Excellence in Materials Management

Building Excellence in Materials Management

Welcome to part five of my 10-part series of blogs called “Uptime Insights”, where we explore a journey of excellence in maintenance. To stay on top, managers must implement strategies that keep operations performing at high levels. In these articles I will show you how to achieve excellence in maintenance – a critical business process in any capital intensive industry. [Read more…]

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Mitigate Risk by Determining Critical Datum

Mitigate Risk by Determining Critical Datum

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

Every day we are exposed to all types of hazards, but what really makes these hazards become risks.

For the past 30 years, I’ve been involved in one way or another, investigating the root causes of failure modes be it a system, process, person, plant or product.   During this time I’ve applied different problem-solving tools like “FMEA, 8D, 5Whys, FEA’s, DMAIC etc” in order to find the true root cause of this failure mode.   Only to get frustrated, thinking I had found the root cause, only 3 months later a new failure mode would come to the surface. [Read more…]