on Maintenance Reliability

Knowing what the best practices are in a storeroom or spare parts management process is not enough. The best practices need to implemented, and typically it can’t just be implemented right away. The level of resources, the ability of people to change all prevents the immediate implementation. In addition, not every organization will be at the same starting point or want to go to the same level of maturity. This is where an assessment comes in. [Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Show me the money!

Benjamin Franklin’s axiom, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, has been used most commonly when referring to health care. It is also highly appropriate in reliability and maintenance circles.

Of course, we complicate it in business by wanting to know what the prevention will cost and what we save by avoiding the cost of the cure. [Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

How to Maintain your Most Important Machine

Who knew that a rogue poker player would teach me how to maintain our ???? ????????? “machine.” When we get this, everything else suffers, big-time. This is similar to a “safety time out.” [Read more…]

by Robert (Bob) J. Latino Leave a Comment

What is RCA? Separating the Tools from the Methodologies

If we have heard it once, we have heard it a million times – “let’s do an RCA on that failure”. The problem here is that phrase will mean something different to everyone who says it. What is an RCA? That is a question even the notable experts cannot agree on. With all of this RCA “chaos”, how do we make any progress? [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Be Prepared: Have a Plan

Without a Plan, You’ll Never Get Where You Are Trying To Go

Image going for a vacation, but you don’t have a destination in mind, directions to the destination, or any funds allocated for the trip. What kind of vacation will you have? Chances are it won’t be a good one.

The importance of a plan cannot be understated. Without a plan in any aspect of life, business or reliability, achieving goals are difficult, if not impossible. Oftentimes organizations implement tactical activities, without a strategic plan. This ad-hoc approach often results in certain aspects of a maintenance & reliability program implemented, but the results do not materialize.

[Read more…]

by Alex Williams Leave a Comment

What is Maintenance Workflow?

Maintenance workflow is the step-by-step process that gets initiated by some trigger event to the point where the action is closed out. For example, in a typical maintenance operation, a trigger event could be a report of faulty equipment. The step-by-step workflow process would include the generation of a maintenance order, the planning of the task, the execution of the repair and the reporting at the end of the job. Every organization has a workflow process whether it is officially documented or not; there is always a standard way to get things done. When this process is not well-defined, it can lead to frustrations on the part of employees trying to get their jobs done as well as major inefficiencies that are costly to the organization over time. In comes maintenance management software…

[Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Why Do You Let Your Budgets Hold You Back?

The “no brainer” opportunity

Let’s say that you run your own business. You have an opportunity to invest some money and get a payback that is more than your total investment within the first year (payback is more than 100% in the first year). Moreover, that payback will continue for many years. Would you invest?

Most entrepreneurs running their own businesses would say yes. After all, the proposition is a “no brainer”. There aren’t a lot of investments with such huge paybacks. Yet many managers in most larger companies won’t go for it. Why? [Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Human Error in Maintenance

Is Human Error in Maintenance the problem? Or are our processes and systems setting us up for failure? As responsible custodians, we need to correct the real problem. [Read more…]

by Robert (Bob) J. Latino Leave a Comment

Proactive RCA: How to Break the Chains of Restraining Paradigms About RCA

Traditionally RCA is only utilized after an event has occurred, so how can one call it proactive? This perception is explored through trying to understand the current paradigms that exist about RCA, what it is and when it is used. Do we really have to wait for an undesirable outcome to occur in order to use RCA? [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Using Governance & Accountability To Improve

How to Drive Performance Improvements in your Organization

Oftentimes, plans and strategies are developed and implemented. Many times the implementation is handed off and the team left on their own to implement. And many of the times, the implementation fails or the results are not delivered.

Why is this? It is because there is a lack of governance and accountability. These are more than just words. They are a system, process and a sense of ownership throughout the organization to ensure that the plan is implemented and any roadblocks are dealt with. [Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

The Link Between RCM Facilitation and Effective Maintenance

These are challenging economic times and opportunities abound with many of our customers to add new business value. They are turning to us and asking: “You’ve brought great value to our Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM-R) program through knowledge capture, personnel education, laying the foundation for a ‘living’ maintenance program and so on. However, what additional value can you provide us beyond what you have already done?” One answer: “Focus on writing high-value, asset maintenance tasks. i.e. Tactical PM Program Implementations”. [Read more…]

by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Why is Proactive Maintenance Important?

It’s important to make sure you do the right Proactive Maintenance at the right intervals because you can catch things before they become serious failures. How a trip to the vet put it all in perspective for me… [Read more…]

by Robert (Bob) J. Latino Leave a Comment

A Personal History of the Art and Science of Reliability

By Charles J. Latino

Foreword By Robert J. Latino: I wanted to dust off this impactful paper written by my father before he passed, and ask for your opinions about how far we have really come in the field of Reliability Engineering, based on your experience?

You are the ones that carry on the Reliability torch today. Based on Charles’ reflections about his Reliability career, how far has your facility come and what hurdles do you still face? [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Get Stuff Done: Utilizing a Workshop Approach to Educate, Decide and Plan

How a properly plan and utilized workshop can move your reliability program forward.

Business Strategic Planning Framework Diagram

Many organizations often struggle to move plans forward. This may be due to the decision-making process and the people involved in the process. Often times the various decision makers are scattered across the company and may be distracted by issues in the plant. In other circumstances, the organization may know what the end goal is, but may not be aware of how to get there. [Read more…]

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Increase Productivity and Competitiveness

Contributed by: David A DeCastro (Salvador, Brazil).

In traveling the world in search of excellence in MRO Materials Management (indirect materials / spare parts), I noticed two curious facts. First, even in developed countries, both the industrial companies and providers of ERPs (enterprise management systems) are often technologically quite backwards outside the realm of their product specialization. Secondly, those typically smaller companies or subject matter experts who have developed differentiated technology, tend to keep it as a safe and guarded trade secret, failing to commercialize their brilliance. [Read more…]