Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
“If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.” – Neil Simon
FMEA and Risk Management are two distinct bodies of knowledge. This article explores some of the interactions between these two important methods. It is not intended to be a complete analysis of the similarities, differences, and linkages between FMEA and risk management. Rather, it is a high-level overview.
I have been working with clients recently who are keen users of FMEA. Getting engineers to contribute potential failures and their causes is not a problem with these clients, but ensuring that actions are correctly identified and followed up is not so easy. So, what goes wrong? What differentiates a good FMEA from a great FMEA? [Read more…]
Planning and Implementing a risk management framework is an admirable accomplishment. Now make sure it is running well and will do so into the future.
As with any process, there will be opportunities to make improvements. By monitoring and reviewing your program you will find what is working well and what is not. [Read more…]
ISO maintains risk has implicitly been a part of the standard since the ISO 9001:2015 revision. How? In the new standard, ‘preventive action’ has evolved to ‘actions to address risk and opportunities.’ This changes the Corrective Action – Preventive Action (CAPA) model. In the past, Preventive Action was implemented as a result of Corrective Action specifically to prevent the recurrence of the nonconformity. [Read more…]
With the advent of ISO 31000 and other ISO standards suggesting organizational risk management practices, your organization may have or soon will implement a risk management plan. Reliability of your products, systems, or assets is an element of the organization’s risk profile.
As reliability professionals, your knowledge and skills are a natural fit within any risk management plan. You may focus exclusively on the reliability performance-related risks You may find the skills and tools to identify and mitigate risks play an important role beyond just reliability performance.
Large and small organizations face risks. The lines of communication differ as do the context, culture, and management practices between any two organization. The implementation of a risk management plan has to fit your organization.
Here are few general guidelines and practical considerations when implementing your organization’s risk management plan. [Read more…]
Making or supporting decisions involving product or system reliability is fraught with uncertainty. Is it reliable enough? Will failures occur prematurely? Are failures dangerous?
Uncertainty is risk.
In recent years more organizations and international standard bodies have focused on risk management. Identifying, analyzing, and mitigating uncertainty in a systematic manner.
There is not a set way for every organization to organize a risk management process. The ISO 31000 standard does describe a framework for the implementation of risk management within your organization. [Read more…]
The 2018 ASQ CRE Body of Knowledge has a new top-level section titled II. Risk Management.
A few of the topics, 6 of the 9, are the same or similar to topics in the previous CRE BoK. There are three new topics that extend the reliability engineers need to know, understand, and use risk management tools.
Overall the new section of Risk Management has three groups of topics:
A. Identification
B. Analysis
C. Mitigation
Let’s take a quick look at the details in this new section and highlight the changes and new elements. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Paul Kostek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
One of the keys to a successful project is having a set of requirements that are well defined and stable. We’ve all worked on projects where a lack of defined and controlled requirements has led to scope creep which result in schedule delays.
The requirements development process must also include mitigations for the risks identified in the Risk Management Plan. To accomplish this the initial risk assessment must be completed before the requirements development process begins. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Rod Farrar (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The project management body of knowledge generally focuses on scope management, time management, and cost management. Risk management generally comes in at about 8th place out of the ten.
However, risk management is potentially the biggest part of the project management planning process.
Often organizations assign resources, dollars and time to project objectives to know exactly when the project is going to finish, how much it is going to cost and what resources are needed.
The problem with doing this is they have not identified risks. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Rod Farrar (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
The project management body of knowledge generally focuses on scope management, time management, and cost management. Risk management generally comes in at about 8th place out of the ten.
However, risk management is potentially the biggest part of the project management planning process. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Ed Perkins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
While we look at risk-based decisions and making decisions under uncertainty, these approaches all have one basic assumption – that the participants in these processes are doing so consciously, with eyes open and with an appreciation of the risks and consequences involved. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Geary Sikich (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Overview
The ability to effectively respond to and manage the consequences of an event in a timely manner is essential to ensure an organization’s survivability in today’s fast paced business environment. With the emergence of new threats, such as cyber-terrorism and bio-terrorism; and the increasing exposure of companies to traditional threats such as, fraud, systems failure, fire, explosions, spills, natural disasters, etc. an “integrated” approach to Business Continuity Planning is essential. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Paul Kostek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
One of the keys to a successful project is having a set of requirements that are well defined and stable. We’ve all worked on projects where a lack of defined and controlled requirements has led to scope creep which result in schedule delays.
The requirements development process must also include mitigations for the risks identified in the Risk Management Plan. To accomplish this the initial risk assessment must be completed before the requirements development process begins. [Read more…]
Guest Post by Greg Hutchins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Last year, we reported that White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB – executive office) is requiring US departments to design and implement Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). The requirements are part of the OMB Circular A 11 Section 270 – Performance and Strategic Reviews.
US Departments are:
expected to manage risks and challenges related to delivering the organization’s mission. ERM is a strategic discipline that can help agencies to properly identify and manage risks to performance, especially those risks related to achieving strategic objectives.
Guest Post by Greg Hutchins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
ISO 31000 is organized around 11 risk management principles. A management principle refers to a fundamental idea, rule, or truth about a subject. ISO 31000 risk principles serve as the guideline, method, logic, design, and implementation for the risk management framework and its process. [Read more…]