Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
All articles listed in reverse chronological order.
Process and portable building siting has attracted further interest following the BP Texas city incident. Because of the proximity of office buildings to chemical processes, it is likely that people inside of a building be subjected to higher risks from process hazards than outdoor personnel.
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Oftentimes, Production may not know the value of using Reliability tools such as Opportunity Analysis (OA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to gain more consistent predictable production runs.
Most production leadership has never spent time in Maintenance and/or Reliability roles; therefore, they see a different big picture. The pieces of the big picture are interconnected like a puzzle and most production people see the puzzle assembled one way, while the Maintenance and Reliability people see the puzzle assembled another way.
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This article discusses five ways to facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) more effectively through conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo. Root cause analysis requires systems thinking because most failures involve a is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, including physical equipment, humans, and interactions.
Facilitation is defined as a structured session(s) in which the meeting leader (the facilitator) guides the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all participants.” The fundamentals of good facilitation as provided in the definition are always essential, including having a structure that includes predefined steps and arriving at results that are created, understood and accepted by all participants.
Another conspiracy theory debunked. Your business has various insurance coverages including business continuity. You pay quite a hefty premium for that coverage so you believe you are covered. But are you really?
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Studies show that the majority of companies today outsource up to 60-70% of their work scope to subcontractors to stay competitive. As a result, subcontractors are a major source of risk to a project.
How to minimize the subcontractor risk on a project is addressed in this paper. The approach to do this is based on my 30 years of project and project risk management experience and knowledge.
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When calculating the replacement asset value fo items brought overseas, factor the effect of the difference in exchange rate into the calculation.
[Read more…]Ahmed asks:
How can we calculate replacement asset value (RAV) of a plant? We have 100’s of equipment in our three plants and we cannot contact 100’s of Vendors to tell us today’s equipment value. We have only the Capitalization Cost or installed historic value of assets.
The oldest plant was installed 6 yrs back (Aug 2015) for a total plant or asset value in our accounting record of 10 MMPKR. When the plant was installed 1 USD = 100 PKR and now after 6 yrs the exchange rate is 1 USD = 172 PKR. We took the capitalization cost of 10 MMPKR and calculated replacement asset value at today’s worth as 10 * 172/100 MMPKR.
How to allocate subsystems’ MTBF requirements with testing? Name-withheld-to-protect-the- guilty proposed “Top-Down” reduction in subsystem MTBF requirements; the more subsystems (in series) that you test, the lower the subsystem required MTBF! “The correct formula is
1/MTBF(subsystem requirement) = 1/MTBF(system requirement) –
((# of subsystems in series – # of subsystems tested)/MTBF(subsystem).”
This “Top-Down…” method is uncited and not found in Internet search.
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The binomial distribution is a discrete distribution useful for estimating the probability of success or failure when these are the only two possible outcomes. Thus, the prefix, “Bi”. Understanding the binomial distribution — how it’s used and under what conditions – is therefore a valuable analytical tool for reliability engineers.
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Reactivity hazards involve conversion of stored chemical energy of the components into mechanical or heat energy, andit is the uncontrolled release of this stored energy that causes the damage in a reactive chemical incident. The reactivity of a substance is normally assessed by performing calorimetric measurements.
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British engineer Robert Whitehead began his career producing textile weaving machinery in France. In 1856 he moved to the Adriatic coast to manufacture marine steam engines. He met Giovanni Luppis, an Austro-Hungarian navy officer, who had been developing a self-propelled coastal defense weapon that could be floated into an enemy fleet. Together, they failed to develop a practical weapon. Whitehead remained fixed on the idea of a submerged, self-propelled weapon. Working on his own for two years, Whitehead developed the modern torpedo. He sold his first units to the Austro-Hugarian Navy in 1867.
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Your team knows what Operation Within Specification (OWS) is for its product. This is the set of performance limits confirmed in the laboratory using API product standards. These limits help establish the ratings for parameters such as pressure, mechanical load, operating temperature, and other parameters found in operating manuals.
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In my travels over the past 35+ years talking to RCA analysts around the world, as well as those outsiders who look into our ‘RCA’ bubble, I find many misconceptions about RCA. This happens in every space, just think about RCM, RBM, APM, CBM and the like; everyone experiences how other people view their craft.
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In a recent article, I shared that every written or verbal communication needs a structure. Aristotle believed that every poem or theatrical performance should follow a three-act structure. The three-act structure stands the test of time in all forms of writing and performing arts. It is also a straightforward and extremely efficient structure. More importantly, it works subtly but effectively with our human thinking processes.
The three-act structure is alive and well in the series “Communicating with FINESSE” on Accendo Reliability. Act One – the Opening – frames what is to come in Act II and lays the foundation of Systems Thinking needed for effective communications. Check out the building story of Act One in these articles: The One Thing Your Approach to Communication & Facilitation is Missing, Effective Communication Is The #1 Thing That Changes Your Life, and Do You Know These Dirty Secrets of Effective Communication?
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There is always a degree of uncertainty in selecting instrumentation for difficult or corrosive environments. Material selection for chemical compatibility involves a strained decision between cost and equipment reliability and longevity. The other major uncertainty is whether the instrument is appropriate for the application – will it repeatedly give truly representative readings all it’s operating life? This article presents a list of instrumentation successfully used in a range of difficult and chemically demanding environments.
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Like Surfside, are you “inspecting to failure”?
In June 2021, we learned about the partial collapse of a condominium in Surfside Florida, with devastating results – only a few survivors, and many fatalities. The building had actually been inspected in 2018 by a qualified engineer, and parts of it were deemed to be “structurally unsound”. In plain English, that means the building’s structure was no longer in good condition and possibly dangerous. It was unsafe to use. The report was submitted to a local authority who raised no red flags, and the building owners chose to do nothing about it. Roughly 3 years later – disaster. It’s a sad example of “inspecting to failure”.
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