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All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

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3 Ways to do Reliability Allocation #1

3 Ways to do Reliability Allocation #1

If we have even a moderately complex product, we often need to break up our design team into smaller groups. Perhaps electronic, mechanical and hydraulic teams. Perhaps teams for specific functional components. And these teams need to work at least partially independently. So what do we do if we have a system reliability goal? What goals do we pass on to our smaller teams? This is where reliability allocation comes into play. Reliability allocation is often portrayed as a very complex, very involved and extremely exhaustive process. It should never be! In fact – the more exhaustive you make, the less likely it is to work.

If you want to learn more about a straightforward approach to reliability allocation – read this!

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Media, Community & Strength

Media, Community & Strength

These are uncertain times and there is a lot of stress in the world.  The media is hitting us with updates on COVID cases, stock market prices and Russia/Saudi Arabia oil news constantly.  For me, it’s been a barrage.  Tuesday through Thursday this week, it got to me.  It stressed me out.  I felt the panic from the media, I felt the panic when I went to the grocery store, I felt the stress from my girlfriend, who works at a senior’s home. [Read more…]

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Potential Economic Consequences of a Pandemic

Potential Economic Consequences of a Pandemic

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

At the time of this writing, coronavirus is spreading in China and is appearing in other areas of the world.  Seasonal flu is also spreading through much of the world.  As a comparison, the below graphics provide a snapshot of the current situations.  First is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) graphic with its representative statistics.  Alarming?  CDC estimates 19 – 26 million flu illnesses; currently, there have been approximately 8,000 flu deaths.  Alarming? [Read more…]

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Uptime – Managing failures before they occur

Being proactive with your assets is all about managing failures before they occur. You can reduce or eliminate the consequences of failure by forecasting what is likely to happen and deciding in advance about what to do about it.  The advantage to doing this is that major business impact due to equipment breakdown can be avoided.  High performing companies manage proactively – they foresee and avoid problems. It’s good for business! [Read more…]

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What is Process Capability Analysis? Really.

What is Process Capability Analysis? Really.

I recently read the results of a AAA survey where Americans were asked to rate their own driving abilities. 73% of those surveyed considered themselves “better-than-average” drivers. Obviously only 50% of the drivers can actually be better than average. So it follows that at least 23% of those surveyed are mis-estimating their own skills.

This over-confidence in one’s abilities seems to find its way into all sorts of areas … including process capability analysis. Everyone who’s been around manufacturing for any length of time has certainly heard of Cp and Cpk. Most of them know that “higher is better” when it comes to these indices. And many will nod their heads and smile when you suggest that Cpk and Ppk account for centeredness, whereas Cp and Pp do not. But only a small percentage of manufacturing professionals can cogently answer the question, “What is Process Capability analysis?” [Read more…]

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MTBF of a Human

MTBF of a Human
“What’s the MTBF of a Human?” That’s a bit of a strange question? I ask this question in my Reliability 101 course. Why ask such a weird question? I’ll tell you why. Because MTBF is the worst, most confusing, crappy metric used in the reliability discipline. Ok maybe that is a smidge harsh, it does have good intentions. But the amount of damage that has been done by the misunderstanding it has caused is horrendous. MTBF stands for “Mean Time Between Failure.” It is the inverse of failure rate. An MTBF of 100,000 hrs/failure is a failure rate of 1/100,000 fails/hr = .00001 fails/hr. Those are numbers, what does that look like in operation? [Read more…]

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Fear, Resilience & Failing Up

Fear, Resilience & Failing Up

There is a lot of fear & hysteria going around the world right now with some of the recent events with Coronavirus, the Russia/Saudi Arabia oil war and the stock market plunge (among other things).

Should you be afraid?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t take reasonable precautions like hand-washing, not traveling to certain areas, however, panicking about the uncontrollable will take you away from things you can control (or at least, influence). [Read more…]

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Why the Maintenance Deficiency?

Why the Maintenance Deficiency?

The awareness gap results from management having limited or no knowledge of the maintenance function and its ability to contribute to the manufacturing process; and maintenance personnel, managers included, having a limited understanding of the business side of manufacturing. The result is that management and maintenance are often unsure about how they together contribute to the company’s success. [Read more…]

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The Design for Risk Idea

The Design for Risk Idea

Yesterday had the chance to review the long list of Design for X topics. Assembly, environment, maintainability, and of course reliability, plus about a dozen other areas of focus. How is a design team to navigate all these different sets of constraints and objectives along with crafting a solution that works?

With a little creativity, you could relate every Design for X topic to reliability. Easier to assembly, fewer assembly errors leading to field failures, for example.

Another way to think about the Design for X space is to consider a superset instead. What are all these design considerations really about? What is common, including the design for reliability topic? With a little thought, it seems clear to me that we all are really considering how to identify and manage risk. [Read more…]

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4 Easy Steps for Online Transformer Monitoring

4 Easy Steps for Online Transformer Monitoring

By Guest Blogger Wesley Suplit, product manager, SDMyers

After my first year in college, I discovered my favorite curriculum – economics. This surprises my friends and family because that discipline is known for its dry content and difficult math concepts. However, I had a completely different and inspiring experience. The course, and, really, my professor, opened my eyes to the beauty of observing how people make decisions.

What rocked my world was how simple economics could be. Conclusions could be inferred simply by observing phenomena and then performing thought experiments related to the observations. The goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question. Surprisingly, no mathematical formulas or complex equations were needed. [Read more…]

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Guide to Asset Management Strategy

Guide to Asset Management Strategy

According to the Institute of Asset Management, an asset management strategy is a “long-term optimized approach to management of the assets, derived from, and consistent with, the organizational strategic plan and the asset management policy.” Stated differently, an asset management strategy is a high-level but very important document that guides asset management activities within an organization.

An Overview of the Asset Management Strategy Development Process

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