Articles Archives - Page 35 of 215

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

Process Monitoring with Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

Aside from meeting specific quality system standard requirements—such as those found in ISO 9001 or IATF 16949—well-designed quality system metrics also can serve as meaningful indicators of the strengths and weaknesses of an organization’s various processes.

As a quality manager, I often consider how precisely our quality system objectives and other metrics describe the effectiveness of our systems. One metric I started using recently—overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)—has provided our management team with a composite measurable that encompasses three major branches of our operation: maintenance, production and quality.

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by Karl Burnett Leave a Comment

Hydroelectric Total Productive Maintenance and Preventative Maintenance

Eric Lof was born and educated in Sweden, moved to the United States in 1902, and worked for the Western Electric and General Electric Companies. Eric Lof published a series of articles on hydroelectric plants in 1913 in the Engineering Magazine. The Engineering Magazine helped spread the concepts of planning, efficiency, and scientific management. The magazine, for example, published the first Gantt charts in 1910.

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by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

Biofuel Safety: Is It Time For Bio-PSM?

Biofuel production and manufacturing facilities in the United States are increasing rapidly. On August 8, 2005, President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (H.R. 6) into law. The comprehensive energy legislation includes a nationwide renewable fuels standard (RFS) that will double the use of ethanol and biodiesel by 2012.

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by JD Solomon 1 Comment

Five Ways to More Effectively Facilitate Block Diagrams

This article discusses five ways to effectively facilitate block diagrams by conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo. The foundations of systems thinking and facilitation apply to block diagrams because the analysis requires a group to establish the nature of separate and inter-related components.

Chronic Failures: Hidden Treasures!

When we look at the widely used and misunderstood tool of Root Cause Analysis (RCA), we should reflect its interpretation in our own environments. Think about it: when is RCA typically requested and applied in our environment? Based on my experience, it is typically requested and applied when:

Someone is injured
There is a catastrophic damage
There is an environmental incident
There is a “near miss” with high severity potential
There is public scrutiny over an issue that makes the news
There is a quality issue that a valued customer is complaining about

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by Doug Lehr 1 Comment

Service Life

Your team is developing a new downhole chemical injection valve for a client’s offshore well. The valve’s service life target reflects its electro-mechanical (EM) content and is much shorter than the well’s economic life. But the valve housing has an estimated structural service life that exceeds well economic life, so structural integrity will exist well beyond electro-mechanical failure. Will the shorter life of the electro-mechanical content satisfy client requirements?

Reliability Testing – Product vs. Materials

Any product is an assembly of components comprised of different materials. The reliability of the product depends on the reliability of the materials – their ability to withstand exposure to the use conditions without degrading to the point that the component or joint stops performing as needed.

There are two approaches for evaluating the reliability of materials: 1) product testing and 2) materials testing. Both involve exposing test samples to actual or simulated use conditions and evaluating the response of the test samples as a function of the amount of exposure to the test conditions. For example, exposure to thermal cycling between -40 and +40 °C or exposure to salt spray. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Lighting Fast Reliability Engineering

A comprehensive reliability engineering program for a new product is a large investment. Not just in dollars, but more importantly, in time. No matter if you are a Fortune 500 company or a startup in your second year, time is always the freight train bearing down on you without mercy. I am going to give you a simple recipe I use for making a highly reliable product when that train horn is blaring and only getting closer. [Read more…]

by Greg Hutchins 1 Comment

Jim Toney – Future of Work – Quality – Interviewed by James Kline

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

James Toney has more than thirty years of experience in the quality profession. His clients have included the U.S. Department of Labor, IRS, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Navy, Housing and Urban Development, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Health and Human Services. Commercial clients included financial, telecommunications, hospitality, educational, and healthcare organizations.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

List of Essential Root Cause Analysis Tools to Use In the RCA Process

Useful Root Cause Analysis Tools to Use in Each Phase of the RCA Process

RCA is used to investigate and address unwanted problems, troubles, and failures, be they within a procedure; from a business or operational process; or in a physical asset.

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by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Unfit for Purpose

The data in Maintenance Management Systems are very often “unfit for purpose”. When asked about why there is an Enterprise Asset Management or Computerized Maintenance Management system, the answer varies. Here are some reasons we’ve heard:

It helps with the planning and scheduling of maintenance work.
It helps us capture maintenance costs against the right cost centers.
It helps us find the parts we need for maintenance jobs.
It provides data for reliability improvements.
We couldn’t possibly manage all the jobs without a system.

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Successful Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Implementation

Doing an RCM analysis is only half the battle for successful RCM Implementation. From the beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I share what you can do to get the results you want.

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by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

Facilitation Skill # 8 – Brainstorming

The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. – Albert Einstein

In this article, we will discuss how to use brainstorming to enhance FMEA effectiveness, and when (and when not) to use brainstorming.

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by Sanjeev Saraf Leave a Comment

LNG Regasification Facilities: Consider High Pressure Releases

LNG import terminals in the U.S. follow NFPA-59A and 49CFR193 standards for facility siting. As a part of the siting studies, LNG regasification facilities report thermal radiation exclusion zones and flammable vapor exclusion zones:

Flammable vapor hazard zones are based on a design spill from a single accidental source, usually a guillotine rupture.
Thermal radiation hazards are based on tank fire.

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by Robert (Bob) J. Latino 1 Comment

What Are Broken Parts Trying to Tell Us?

Author: Mark Latino

RCA and How to Understand the Basics of Component Failure

When performing a PROACT® Root Cause Analysis (RCA) there is a data collection step called ‘Preserve’ (or the PR in the PROACT acronym) which requires the team to collect failed parts, conduct interviews, obtain paper data and positional information after an undesirable event occurs.

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