Accendo Reliability

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on Maintenance Reliability

A listing in reverse chronological order of these article series:


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Use Words Instead of Code Numbers

Use Words Instead of Code Numbers

in your CMMS System

A work order full of code numbers confuses people. When work order type (breakdown, corrective, modification, etc) is described as Work Order Type ‘04’ you can guarantee that no one knows what ‘04’ is without looking it up on a list.

If a Trade Type is a ‘02’ and it means a fitter, you can be sure that a lot of work order requests from operators will be wrong and they will take the planner’s time to correct. Even more confusing is when the Work Order Type and the Trade Type are both an ‘04’!  [Read more…]

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The Recipe for RCM Success!

The Recipe for RCM Success!

RCM Implementations don’t fail, believe me if you understand what your getting into upfront, use a proven process to select your asset for analysis AND you commit the resources, your implementation will be a huge success.

Looking back 20 years I can clearly remember performing my first RCM analysis and the ordeal that followed as we struggled to:

a) See the value in the analysis we had just completed (Someone told us that RCM should be performed on every piece of equipment at our plant so we selected one of our most common assets.

b) Free up the resources necessary to implement the tasks that came out of the analysis. [Read more…]

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Run to Failure is a Viable Option

Train wreck
Image by Robyn Jay

How Allowing Equipment to Fail, Will Improve the Uptime in your Facility.

Often times the maintenance team is focused on preventing failures in the facility.  All failures need to be addressed and no failures are acceptable.   This mindset may be holding back the uptime in your facility.  How is this?  After all, if we strive to prevent all failures shouldn’t uptime improve?

Most organizations do not have the resources to prevent every single failure and as such, resources are often pulled from failure to failure.  When the organization focuses on the consequences of the failure, instead of the failure itself, it can free up the resources to improve reliability.   Once the consequences are understood, running equipment to failure becomes an option.  This allows the team to focus on preventing the failures that make a difference to the business. [Read more…]

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5 Sure Signs You’re Getting Old!

5 Sure Signs You’re Getting Old!

Just a bit of humor as we push to the end of another work week!

I turned 55 a few weeks back and just yesterday someone asked me how old I was. I had to stop for a minute to think and when I replied 55 the young Engineer who asked me the question sat back in his chair and said; “Wow! That means you have been working in the Reliability Engineering field like 35 years!  I can’t imagine the changes you have seen in your career!” [Read more…]

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Completing The Right Maintenance At The Right Time With CBM & PdM

Understanding The Difference Between Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) & Predictive Maintenance (PdM)

Hand holding glass orb
Image by Christian Schnettelker

PdM & CBM are in almost every discussion that involves improving plant performance and reducing costs.  But what is the difference between the two and when should one be used over the other?  This post will address those two questions and a few cautions when using these techniques. [Read more…]

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Centrifugal Pump Cavitation

Centrifugal Pump Cavitation

What readers will learn in this article.

  • How pressure and temperature changes cause cavitation.
  • How cavitation causes damage to equipment.
  • Gas entrainment compounds the problem.
  • Methods to reduce the occurrence of cavitation.

What is Cavitation?

Cavitation is the occurrence of vapour bubbles in a liquid. A vapour bubble will form when the pressure in a liquid falls so low it boils or the temperature rises so high it boils.  [Read more…]

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Reduce Health, Safety & Environmental Incidents & Accidents With Reliability Centered Maintenance

Reduce Health, Safety & Environmental Incidents & Accidents With Reliability Centered Maintenance

Reliability Centered Maintenance is a powerful tool that when applied and implemented correctly can provide numerous benefits including improved equipment reliability, a reduction in unplanned downtime and lower unit cost of product. One of the most impressive benefits of performing a RCM Blitz™ analysis is the identification of failure modes that could result in a health, safety and environmental incident or accident. While some would like to believe that in today’s world where most new designs and capital projects are subjected to numerous design reviews that would include process hazard analysis we still uncover a significant number of health, safety and environmental related failure modes in every RCM Blitz™ analysis. [Read more…]

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Root Cause Analysis: The Key To Breaking The Reactive Cycle

Root Cause Analysis: The Key To Breaking The Reactive Cycle

Addressing The Root Cause Of Failures Will Unlock The Potential Of The Business

You walk into the plant on Monday morning.  You are immediately confront by the production manager stating “Press 201 is down.  The mechanics are saying it is the clutch again.”  You feel an overwhelming sense disbelief.  You ran overtime last weekend and replaced clutch at a cost of $30,000.   How is it the clutch is failing again?

This scenario may sound familiar.  It happens all the time, across many different industries and plants.  So what exactly happened?  The root cause was not properly diagnosed, and the clutch was replaced.   Based on the short life of the new clutch, the root cause was likely something else that is affecting the clutch. [Read more…]

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Stress in Metals

Stress in Metals

What readers will learn in this article.

  • Explanation of stress and strain.
  • How metals yield and deform under stress.
  • What happens at the molecular level in metals under stress.
  • Methods to minimise stress concentrations.

Too much stress in metal will cause it to fail. Failure can occur by putting the metal under a once-only load greater than it can take or by continually loading the metal cyclically with a high load less than the breaking load (metal fatigue). [Read more…]

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Guarantee Your Performance with Basic Care

When you hear the term basic care, what comes to mind?

I remember hearing a story of a brand new packaging line that was installed.  It operated at high OEE, delivering significant improvements over the old line.  Within 6 weeks, the line was running worse than the original one.   Finger pointing ensued, the OEM saying it was how it was maintained.  With the manufacturer saying it was a poor design.

A few weeks later, a prominent government official was scheduled to visit the site to officially open the new line.   The site was shut down and all the equipment was thoroughly cleaned.  The line started up and ran just as well as it did when it was first installed.  This story highlights the importance of having clean equipment, and the impact it can have on an operation.  This is where Basic Care comes in. [Read more…]

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Why Do You Need Reliability Centered Maintenance?

Why Do You Need Reliability Centered Maintenance?

I had a conference call this morning with some potential clients in regard to rolling out a RCM Blitz™ effort. The sad thing about Reliability Centered Maintenance is the reputation the tool has acquired over the last 40 years has one of two faces.

The sad, tragic and more popular face is that if the Resource Consuming Monster. The reputation that RCM is too detailed, that it takes too long, and that by the time you finish your analysis there are no recourses and there is no money left for implementation. According to a survey conducted on ReliabilityWeb.com nearly 70% of all RCM implementations fail, with statistics like this, it is a wonder the tool still exists. [Read more…]

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Unlock the Efficiency of Your Planner with a Single Step: BOMs

How Bill of Materials (BOMs) Can Exponentially Increase the Efficiency of Your Maintenance Planner

BOMs - Siemens PLM
Image by Siemens PLM Software

Imagine a world where the Maintenance Planner can quickly and easier find all the material information for each job. Even those that do not yet have a job plan. Dreams or reality? Reality. This reality is found within operations all over the world and you can have it too. How can you achieve a level of efficiency with your Planner and have all materials information readily available? With Bills of Material.

A Bill of Material or BOM as it is commonly referred to, is a list of material needed to support the operations and maintenance of an asset or component. It includes a part description, part number and how many are required on a specific component or assembly. It may also include a reference number that refers to a sub assembly drawing. [Read more…]