Articles Archives - Page 27 of 215

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

Becoming A Reliability Pro – How To Harness, Store, And Use Failure Data For Future Use

The manufacturing sector has seen a rise in competitiveness because of the introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies over the last decade. It has become important for manufacturers to stand out in the industry by optimizing their systems to be as perfect as possible. One of the factors that make a factory competitive is its reliability, and a smart factory has great opportunities to improve it using the failure data from its assets.

The smart factories created using these technologies have greater efficiency and provide valuable data about the assets which can be used to further improve plant performance. The asset failure data gathered from different assets can provide insights into the reliability of assets and how to improve it. [Read more…]

by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Hurricane Risk Management For Refineries: Control The Flying Objects

Hurricanes pose serious risks to physical assets in chemical plants and refineries. During hurricanes, plant equipment can be damaged by high winds and/or flood waters. I’m hoping your refinery has adequate protection against flooding…so let us see what risks are posed by high winds.

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by Alex Williams Leave a Comment

5 Benefits of CMMS Software for Manufacturing Plants

The equipment needed to run a manufacturing plant is costly and expensive to replace. Furthermore, equipment downtime leads to lost production, which directly impacts profits. Replacing reactive maintenance with proactive maintenance through the implementation of CMMS software for manufacturing plants will give you more control and help you prevent equipment breakdown and failure. The benefits of CMMS software are numerous for manufacturing plants.

Electronic Data Collection: The Bridge to the Connected Plant

Guest post by Ken Latino

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has created immense excitement and promise for industrial facilities. Having connected assets that continuously monitor their own health and feed that information back in a way that is timely and actionable will drive business outcomes and help organizations achieve loftier goals. The challenge today is that many of our assets are not yet “connected” or “intelligent,” meaning that they are not yet outfitted with the health monitoring instrumentation that provides the live, automated data feed directly to a centralized repository of data. Yes, critical assets like turbine generators, boiler feed water pumps, highly critical motors and the like are indeed outfitted with modern instrumentation and fail-safe solutions. However, in most industrial facilities throughout the world, this is a very small population of assets.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

World Economic 2021 Forum Global Risk Report

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

The World Economic Forum has conducted a Global Risk Survey since 2006. This is the fifteenth survey. The responses are from 650 members of the World Economic Forum. In the preface to the 2021 Global Risk Report it is noted that: “In 2006, the Global Risks Report sounded the alarm on pandemics and other health-related risks.” (1) With this context in mind, the 2021 risk analysis “centers on the risks and consequences of widening inequalities and societal fragmentation. In some cases, disparities in health outcomes, technology, or workforce opportunities are the direct result of the dynamics the pandemic created.” (2)

This piece will review the results of the 2021 Global Risk Survey. It will also discuss some of the issues surrounding the survey.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Win the World Cup with Plant Wellness Way

CHANGE THE GOALS CHANGES YOUR GAME

Let a Plant Wellness Way EAM System-of-Reliability End Your Business Risks Forever

In the Plant Wellness Way EAM system-of-reliability methodology you set world class performance targets for every work task. You do that so the people doing the job know what world class work looks like. Then you ask them to find new, successful ways to deliver world class outcomes in the tasks they do. That way you guarantee world class success.

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by Larry George Leave a Comment

Forecast Parts’ Demands, Without Life Data, for a Nonstationary Process

In the 1960s, my ex-wife’s father set safety stock levels and order quantities for Pep Boys. He used part sales rates and the Wilson square-root formula to set order quantities.

Why not use the ages of the cars into which those parts go, to forecast part sales and recommend stock levels? Imagine you had vehicle counts (year, make, model, and engine) in the neighborhoods of parts stores, catalogs of which parts and how many go into which cars, and store sales by part number.

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by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What is Probability?

with co-author Mark Fiedeldey

The definition of the term “reliability” begins by specifying that reliability is a probability. Therefore, the concept of a probability, while sometimes intimidating to reliability practitioners, is fundamentally important.

Probability can be defined as the extent to which an event is likely to occur. Just as an average is a measure of central tendency, probability is a measure of uncertainty in a particular event or outcome. That’s all … Nothing intimidating here.

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by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Proactive Risk Management: Why Is It So Tough?

There is a big difference between proactively mitigating risks vs. reacting to incidents. Why do corporations wait to take active safety measures till an incident occurs? Because being proactive is hard…very hard and requires a lot of discipline.

Product Reliability: Selection and Control

In a recent Accendo podcast, Chris Jackson and Fred Schenkelberg discussed who is responsible for producing a reliable product, which included designers and suppliers. I’m going to weigh in.

The reliability of any product depends on the reliability of the individual components and joints within the product. That is, the ability of the components and joints to withstand exposure to stressors without degrading to the point that they fail, resulting in the product no longer performing as required. Stressors, which include corrosion conditions, fatigue, and wear, were discussed in an earlier article.

Whether individual components and joints have the reliability required boils down to two basic aspects of engineering – selection and control. The appropriate form (i.e. shape, dimensions, features) and materials for components and joints must be selected during product design. Then, systems must be put in place to control fabrication of components and joints, ensuring their form and materials are as specified. This will enable the components and joints to consistently meet performance and reliability requirements.

So, who’s responsible for this selection and control?

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by Alex Williams Leave a Comment

Effectively Integrating Your CMMS with Current Systems

Maintenance management software increases uptime and productivity, lowers maintenance costs and extends the life of equipment and optimizes inventory usage—provided that it integrates seamlessly with existing systems. One of the toughest aspects of managing this software is CMMS integration. If your CMMS doesn’t communicate smoothly and easily with your accounting, inventory, human resources, purchasing, and other systems, it can reduce response times and lead to an increased chance of error. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Two Methods of Quick Mating Part Location and Alignment

Error Proof Quick Mating Part Location And Alignment. For speedy and easy maintenance it is best to design equipment with a means to insure accurate and exact location of contacting parts. This removes the opportunity for alignment errors during rebuilds and speeds-up maintenance overhauls. In this article is a sketch of two common methods used to provide positive and certain location and alignment between mating parts.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Humans Have New Roles in this Digitally Disrupted World

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

While there is oftentimes a “generational war” between the young and the old in the workplace, where the divide is created by the younger generation’s familiarity with technology and the older generation’s aversion to it, the multigenerational concern that plagues all age groups is that technology will outpace humans, leaving many unemployed.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Do RCM on All Equipment?

Absolutely not! That is a big misconception of the process. You get to decide how broadly or how narrowly you apply Reliability Centered Maintenance.

by Karl Burnett Leave a Comment

Road Maintenance: McAdam, Mud, Major Generals, and the French Influence

British writers often marvelled at the quality and longevity of Roman roads, wondering how modern engineers and governments could hope to imitate their success. The fascination with Roman roads continues, and an excellent overview by Richard Brushi is available on Medium.com.

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