on Maintenance Reliability

The watch keeper of old guarded their people and possessions. They were found walking about looking, listening, and watching for changes that signaled danger. Their job was to look for hazards and quickly raise the alarm before all of them were invaded and killed or captured into slavery. With sufficient warning the home group could rally to the defence and counter-attack the enemy.

Times haven’t changed that much. Instead of being invaded by the enemy we now get consumed by plant and equipment problems. If only there was an effective way to spot problems coming our way and mount a counter-attack before being overrun. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

6 Tips to Enjoy Your Job!

I have told my own children for years now that I didn’t find the job that I loved until I was around 35. Truth is I was around 35 when I figured out what I enjoyed but I didn’t really enjoy doing it until around 4 years later when I had the courage to leave the large company I had worked at for 19 years and start a business of my own. Working on my own I developed a product, had to market and sell that product to build a brand name. I had to make sure that every customer engagement was a shining example of success and efficiency because I not only wanted more business, I wanted my customers to tell everyone they knew that when it came to RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) I was not only the best bargain, I was one of the best in the world. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Get Your Parts Right: The Storeroom Manager

The Roles & Responsibilities of the Storeroom Manager

The storeroom manager has the responsibility of ensuring the right parts, in the right quantity, at the right time are available. But what if they are pre-occupied with other tasks to properly manage the storeroom? It increases costs, delays work and increases Mean Time to Repair. This series continues with the storeroom manager. With the storeroom manager clear on their roles and responsibilities, the storeroom can operate efficiently and accurately. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Spherical Roller Bearings

Understanding the Basics of Spherical Roller Bearings

Spherical roller bearings (SRB) are popular because they can take very heavy loads and are self aligning. Their design allows them to take combined loads in both the radial and axial direction acting together. Each roller is loosely retained in place within a cage that goes full circle between the raceways. Figure 1 shows a simplified drawing of a spherical roller bearing on a shaft under deflection. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

Clean, Green and Reliable – the book

Clean, Green & Reliable – Improving Equipment Reliability and Reducing Energy in Manufacturing Facilities

I first became interested in manufacturing reliability nearly twenty years ago working as a maintenance mechanic who had a personal interest in improving the reliability of individual assets by searching through our maintenance history for areas where we were spending the most time and money in regard to emergency/demand work orders. Using the history we had in our database we used the 80/20 approach to identify the 20% of our assets where we spent nearly 80% of our maintenance budget. Once we identified a system or asset to work on we would use a cause-map or root cause analysis to identify the potential causes of our equipment failures, understanding these causes we would then look to identify potential redesigns to eliminate or reduce the frequency of equipment failures. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

The Coach: The Maintenance Supervisor

The Roles & Responsibilities of the Maintenance Supervisor

The Maintenance Supervisor is known as the coach of the maintenance department. But what if they are pre-occupied with other tasks and unable to coach the technicians? It has the potential to increase overtime, increase rework and increase Mean Time to Repair. That is why this series continues with the Maintenance Supervisor. With the Supervisor clear on their roles and responsibilities, the technicians get the coaching they need to succeed. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 4 Comments

Equipment and Plant Layout for Improved Maintenance

7 Consideration for Equipment and Plant Layout for Improved Maintenance

Equipment reliability studies show that the likelihood of failure increases the more often machinery is disturbed. The chance of something being done wrong rises every time an item of plant is worked on. Nothing may go wrong the first time or the second time but with each additional disruption there is an increasing possibility that an error will be made.

Simple, fast and uncomplicated access to individual items of plant and equipment means higher plant availability and longer time between failures. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette 4 Comments

10 Signs of Not Understanding Equipment Reliability

10 Sure Signs Your Company Just Doesn’t Understand Equipment Reliability!

In honor of the fast approaching holiday season, let’s start the week off with a laugh or two, I have listed some of the sure-fire signs that your company may not be ready for this reliability stuff. I have to say that in my first 5 years working as a consultant, I wasn’t prepared for some of the things folks would tell me while working on site, and there were times I actually laughed when I should have just bitten my tongue. I once asked a manager if their equipment was reliable; he pondered the question a minute and replied, “It is some of the time.”

Tell me: how do you not laugh when someone says that with a straight face? [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 2 Comments

The Driver of Wrench Time: The Maintenance Planner / Scheduler

The Roles & Responsibilities of the Maintenance Planner / Scheduler

The Maintenance Planner / Scheduler is known as the coordinator of the maintenance department. But what if they are unsure of the priorities of the department or business? It has the potential to increase overtime, planned downtime and increase costs. That is why this series continues with the Maintenance Planner / Scheduler. With the Planner / Scheduler clear on their roles and responsibilities, the technicians can deliver the right amount of care. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini 7 Comments

How Fluid Flows in Pipes

The Basics on How Fluid Flows in Pipes

A fluid is either a liquid or a gas. In industry they are piped from storage to the point of use. Correct design and installation of the piping system minimises pressure loss and improves the behaviour of equipment and processes.

This article briefly explains what happens to fluids flowing through pipes. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette Leave a Comment

The Top 5 Signs of A Reliable Plant

Having visited hundreds of manufacturing plants in the last 15 years, someone recently asked me if there were any traits the most reliable plants all had in common. I have listed below the top 5 signs of a reliable plant. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 1 Comment

The Leader of Maintenance Excellence: The Maintenance Manager

The maintenance manager is known as the leader of the maintenance department. But what if they are unclear on where they are going or need to do? It has the potential to derail the entire department. That is why this series is going to start with the maintenance manager. Once they are clear, the rest of the team can follow.

If you followed the steps in first post of the series, you would be ready to review the roles & responsibilities across the department. This post takes the next step of breaking down the individual role of the maintenance manager to help you on that journey. [Read more…]

by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Capacitance Levels Probes

Capacitance level probes consist of a long rod or cable that protrude into a vessel and its contents. The instrument sets up an electric field between the probe and the tank wall using the contents of the tank as a dielectric (a nonconductor that allows an electric field to exist within itself). If the tank is non-metal, such as plastic or brick lined, two parallel rods are mounted in the level probe or a metal strip can be run on the outside of the tank. The electric field is set-up between the two probes or the probe and the metal strip. Figure 1 shows a simplified layout for a capacitance level probe. [Read more…]

by Doug Plucknette 1 Comment

Is Your Company’s Reputation Important?

5 Tips on How To Maintain Reputation & Integrity

My father taught me at a young age that your name is everything and if you want to be successful in life you have to ensure that when someone hears your name in conversation or reads your name in print that the first thing they think is positive.

The world hasn’t changed from the time he told me that over 40 years ago, in fact today it’s even more critical because we now have the internet and social media.

Good news travels fast.

Bad news travels 100 times faster!

Understanding this, here are 5 tips on what your company can do to build and maintain its reputation and integrity. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 1 Comment

STOP! Break the Reactive Cycle with Roles & Responsibilities

The key to driving performance to new heights is Roles & Responsibilities.

Play drawing — Image from opensource.com

Your planner is putting together a scheduler to 8:00pm on a Friday night for Saturday morning. Your storeroom doesn’t have the parts you need and you maintenance supervisor is running back and forth. On top of this, you are unable to meet your maintenance goals, preventing the orgainzation from achieving its goals.

Depending on your organization, you may walk into this type of chaos every morning, and those that don’t, chances are you did at some point.

So what seperates the organizations that have this choas and those that don’t? Clear Roles & Responsibilities is what seperates these two types of orgainzations. This is the first of a series of 6 posts on the topic of Roles & Responsibilities. [Read more…]