Habit #4: Decide with Data with Peter Horsburgh
It’s my pleasure to welcome back Peter Horsburgh. He is the author of the ‘Five Habits of Extraordinary Reliability Engineers.’ He has a long history within reliability engineering. He essentially started in manufacturing, then moved to mining, then to power generation, and to aluminum smelting.
In this episode we covered:
- Now we’re here to discuss habit number four; decide with data. So, what does this mean to you?
- You mentioned data-driven debate. What is it?
- In the book, you said problem solving should follow a framework. You mentioned problem-cause-solution-value framework. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
There is not a single maintenance department that I am aware of that has an unlimited budget. If you are aware of one, please let me know as I would love to see if it is successful or not.
Let’s face it, we as engineers, maintenance staff, etc. all love technology and the newest gadget. Our industry is never short of these new and shiny techniques, tools, sensors, etc. Now, this new tech can lead to significant improvements in availability, OEE, or uptime. But these are not the silver bullets many claim them to be… especially if the foundational elements are not in place.
Determining which parts of stock can be a very overwhelming process. As such, many choose to blindly accept the OEM or Manufacturer’s recommendations. And why shouldn’t they? The OEM has many years of experience in building these types of assets and supplying spares, right?
