Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

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But does it meet our design specification?

But does it meet our design specification?

More often than we think, customers who aren’t even trying to Use Case 7 our products seem to end up doing so regardless.  That’s fine, it happens. However, it also tends to result in $1 billion + lawsuits that could have easily been avoided.

The big question is, who do YOU blame? I mean you, the person reading this article. When your team discovers a field failure root cause to be user error do you either:

  1. Investigate a way to minimize the likelihood of it happening again through design improvement or some other means?
  2. Mark the investigation as “bad customer” and move on?

[Read more…]

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Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something

Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something

In one of my recent webinars on ‘reliability culture,’ I was asked a really good question. Someone (let’s call him ‘Tim’) asked me:

How do I get the most out of my ‘ad hoc’ reliability team?

Tim had recently created a ‘reliability team’ made up of people from different areas of his organization. These people were smart, qualified, but had non-reliability engineering day jobs. They weren’t qualified reliability engineers. They weren’t idiots. And they couldn’t devote all their time to reliability. [Read more…]

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Best Practice for Dealing with Field Failures

Best Practice for Dealing with Field Failures

A common practice I’ve seen in organizations is to deal with field failures when they occur. This may occur when the mistaken assumption that no failure will occur due to ‘such an excellent design.”

Ben Franklin may not have been thinking about future product failures, yet his quote:

By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.

implies we need to prepare ourselves and our organization to deal with field failures. Having clear processes to deal with field failures is a best practice. [Read more…]

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The Top 5 Signs That Your Storeroom is Broken

A simple way to see how effective your storeroom is at providing the right part, at the right time, in the right quantity.

Storerooms are a critical part of any maintenance and reliability program, but they are often overlooked.   When a storeroom is operating at best in class levels, the right parts are available at the right time.   The storeroom is only able to achieve this when it its into the maintenance department.

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Introduction to the Delphi Method

Introduction to the Delphi Method

As reliability professionals, we are in the business of estimating or forecasting the reliability performance of our product, equipment, or system. While we use a range of tools to analytically make these estimates, sometimes we do not have sufficient data or information.

One method is to ask another person that has knowledge of the particular technology, use conditions, or whatever is hampering our work. If you ask two people you most like will get two different answers. If you ask 10, 10 different answers.

One way to work with a group of subject matter experts is to conduct a structured communication technique called the Delphi Method. [Read more…]

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Trick Question: Do You Want Value or Low Costs?

Trick Question: Do You Want Value or Low Costs?

If you can’t sell all you can produce, then reducing costs is often the only way to improve margins, but that simplistic accounting perspective is not always the case. Cost control is often thought to be key to attaining profitability but it the case of maintenance it can get you into trouble. Cost control can have a big opportunity cost if you don’t take advantage of the opportunities you have. Consider that what you might really want is greater value – more for less, no just less. [Read more…]

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Strategy + Execution = Success

Strategy + Execution = Success

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

As COVID-19 has disrupted life all over the globe, organisations are forced to significantly change and adapt to the ever-changing customer attitudes and preferences resulting from the pandemic.

The competitive playing field and business environment have been reset. It is now back to square one for many businesses. Businesses have to operate like a start-up, big and small. And they have to start at the same time when governments relax their social isolation requirements. [Read more…]

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Emerging Trends in Facilities Management

Emerging Trends in Facilities Management

Manufacturing companies are struggling with the persistent and growing problem of finding employees with the skills needed to sustain and grow their businesses. This problem is commonly called the “skills gap.” Experts estimate that this skills gap may leave 2.4 million manufacturing positions unfilled through 2028, with a potential economic impact of $2.5 trillion (Deloitte 2018).

One of the key drivers of this gap is the rapid influx of technology into every aspect of manufacturing. New technology of course, requires new skills. In a 2019 article published by McKinsey, analysts identified six emerging trends in facilities management, each requiring new skills and each offering opportunities for career growth. (Adhikari, 2019) [Read more…]

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Improving Reliability with Good Judgment

Improving Reliability with Good Judgment

At an early concept meeting discussing the technical strategy for the new product, the engineering teams were at an impasse. The decision matrix balanced out with three distinct options. Product reliability differed slightly with each option yet presented risks just as the considerations of cost, complexity, feature set, and time to market.

The project manager, the leader of the development program, asked a few questions, asked for input from the director of engineering, and selected a path forward.

The team accepted the decision. The project went well. Yet, I’ve often wondered how did she know which option to select. I also learned to trust her judgment on difficult decisions. [Read more…]