Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
All articles listed in reverse chronological order.
by Alan Ross
When you start to put a risk and reliability program together for high voltage electrical equipment—primarily transformers—you have to go through a cultural change. I’ve seen it repeatedly, both in the industrial marketplace and the utility marketplace.
It’s never a one-person decision. [Read more…]
This article is directed at those ‘first responders’ who arrive immediately at the failure scene. These are the people who have to ensure the area is safe, preserve the scene for investigators and contribute to a plan to expedite a quick, safe return to production norms.
Many do not understand how valuable failed parts are to the metallurgical/forensic investigators. Broken parts are to metallurgists’, like the murder weapon is to a forensic crime investigator.
This article is meant to educate those that have access to the failed parts first, as to why they should preserve them in their failed state (not cleaning them up). We want to give them enough knowledge to be dangerous and raise their curiosity as to making a call on the fracture patterns they see. [Read more…]
If you’ve ever participated on a project team considering the purchase of a major piece of equipment, you’ve almost certainly heard of “Payback Period” – the length of time projected to recoup an initial investment through cost savings, increase profits, etc. It’s fairly simple to calculate: [Read more…]
Manufacturers always publish recommended maintenance for users of their products. There are a few myths about this maintenance – one is that it will result in reliable operation of the equipment. In some cases it does, but in most, it does not. Why? [Read more…]
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on November 19 ,2008, Rahm Emanuel was quoted as saying; “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before.”
He was referring to the crisis that was to become known as the “Great Recession” that gripped much of the world, hitting hardest from 2007-2008. It was a period when millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure, nearly countless businesses declared bankruptcy; many being household names such as General Motors and Chrysler – along with a great number of financial institutions. [Read more…]
There is an issue up for vote this year in my home state of Massachusetts. It’s called “Right to Repair.” The proposed law states that automotive manufacturers can not lock owners and independent repair shops out of vehicles on-board diagnostic computers. These are the arguments on either side of the issue:
Auto manufacturers don’t want independent repair shops completing work on their vehicles with technicians who are not factory trained. They are also concerned about repairs being completed with non-factory parts that could potentially be sub-standard. These manufacturers believe they should have control regarding repairs because they are held responsible when issues occur under warranty. So why is this an issue now?
If you think it’s expensive to figure out what kind of scheduled maintenance you should be doing on your equipment….wait until you get the bill for NOT doing it! Check out how Shakespeare inspired me on this one! [Read more…]
Guest post by Mark Latino
If managers knew what the overall power of a well supported Root Cause Analysis (RCA) effort meant for their bottom-line, they would be breaking down doors to implement the process.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case, so this paper is an attempt to educate such individuals about the characteristics of an effective RCA methodology. The paper focuses on three aspects of RCA:
These days everyone seems to be cutting spending. It’s entirely discretionary, so it’s easy to eliminate. But is that a smart move?
But today, times are tough. Trade wars, protectionism, and generally sluggish economies before those were a factor have all contributed to poor corporate performance. Shareholders want more. But can you really cut costs to become profitable? No – of course not, at least not in the long term. Cost cutting, if not done intelligently, is an immediate measure that often ends up reducing capability and / or capacity and leaves the organization weaker than it was before. [Read more…]
As readers of my pieces know, there are concerns about how ASQ is being managed. These concerns have caused a split among the membership. Some hold fast and support corporate management, while others want changes. This piece is the result of a question and an exchange on the LinkedIn Restore ASQ community.
The original discussion question on Linkedin was: ‘Why didn’t the risk analysts see the pandemic coming’? The exchange quickly devolved into those who felt that the disbanding of some ASQ Chapters is the fault of chapter members, not corporate and those who place ASQ’s troubles on corporate management. Considering the Coronavirus is forcing everyone to review assumptions, associations, and business models, it is worth visiting these issues. [Read more…]
Functions is the first step in the RCM process and they serve as the foundation of the RCM process. Properly written Functions serve two very important aspects of asset management. [Read more…]
Sometimes we can only test one use case before we ship our product. So what should it be? Should it be the hardest use case? The nominal use case? The 95th percentile use case?
No! It should be the “midlife crisis use case.” What is it? I’ll show you.
Your assessment needs a clear framework to help you process the information you have and analyze the risks. Sometimes you will have one prepared but at other times, you need to do this yourself. Whatever the situation, you need to know what goes into designing and building a framework if you’re going to be successful.
You will often find that the categories, methodology and metrics you’ll use to actually evaluate your risk are given to you or prepared in advance. You simply take the information you’ve already gathered and pass it through the system.
But what do you do if you don’t have a neatly laid out process? Or how can you spot where there’s a flaw in the methodology being used? [Read more…]
by Alan Ross
When you think about maintenance from a reliability perspective rather than an engineering perspective, it becomes clear that transformers are somewhat of a red-headed stepchild, even though they are the heart of the electrical system.
Why? Let’s take a closer look.
Guest post by Mark Latino
This case history takes place in a packaging facility in Virginia. The packer on module E5 was checked for vibration integrity during a pre-machine care evaluation. A problem was detected in the folding arm gearbox. The frequency characteristics indicated a bearing was deteriorating.
This seems very straight forward but let’s put the reality of the situation into the problem detected. The gearbox is located in a section of the packer that is not easily accessible. To do the necessary repairs it will require separating the two sections of the machine. When the packer is split it will take an additional two days of work before the unit can be restored to service. [Read more…]