Most companies don’t measure mean time between failures (MTBF), even though it’s the most basic measurement that quantifies reliability. MTBF is the average time an asset functions before it fails. So, why don’t they measure MTBF? Let’s define reliability first before we go any further.
Reliability: The ability of an item to perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated period of time
So why don’t we measure Mean Time Between Failure. This articles discusses this issue.
If you are thinking your operators are not important in helping with the management of asset reliability, think again. You cannot achieve an optimal state of asset reliability with the operators. This is a Great article on this topic.
Advanced Maintenance And Reliability (Best Maintenance and Reliability Practi...Ricky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Maintenance and reliability has taken great strides toward managing asset reliability by applying known best practices in maintenance and reliability finding that they can optimize reliability and reduce total cost and reduce risk by applying known best practices. However, if not most organizations are still trapped in the old way of thinking. Read this article and see where you stand.
10 Things an Operations Supervisor can do Today to Improve ReliabilityRicky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Continuing the series that started with maintenance technicians and supervisors, if you are new to the position of Operations Supervisor, what are some of the things you can begin working on immediately to improve reliability within the area you work?
The concepts contained within Lean Manufacturing are not limited merely to production systems. These concepts translate directly into the world of maintenance and reliability.
At the core of Lean Manufacturing philosophy is the concept of elimination of waste. It is about getting precisely the right resources to precisely the right place and at the right time to make only the necessary products in the most efficient manner possible.
The concepts of the elimination of waste can be easily traced to Benjamin Franklin. Poor Richard encouraged the concepts of elimination of waste in numerous ways. Adages like “Waste not, want not”, “A penny
saved is two pence clear…Save and have” and “He that idly loses 5s. [shillings] worth of time, loses 5s., and might as prudently throw 5s. into the river.” Yes, it was Benjamin Franklin that educated us about the possibility that avoiding unnecessary costs could return more profit than simply increasing total sales.
It was Henry Ford who took the concept of the elimination of waste and integrated it into daily operations at his manufacturing facilities. Mr. Ford’s attitude can be seen in his books, “My Life and Work” (1922) and in “Today and Tomorrow” (1926) where he describes the folly of waste and introduces the world to Just-In-Time manufacturing. Mr. Ford cites inspiration from Benjamin Franklin as part of the foundation of these concepts.
However, it wasn’t until Toyota’s Chief Engineer, Taiichi Ohno systematized these concepts and the concept of pull (Kanban) into the Toyota Production System and created a cohesive production philosophy that was focused on the elimination of waste, that the world was able to see the real power of Lean Manufacturing. Interestingly enough, when Mr. Ohno was asked about the inspiration of his system, he merely laughed and said he read most of it in Henry Ford’s book.
Part 1 of this report will focus on one very specific Lean Manufacturing method known as 5S. This section will detail how a 5S initiative focusing on a plant’s Preventive Maintenance (PM) Program can immediately unlock resources within that maintenance department and make the PM process significantly more effective and efficient. Part 2 will look at the Deadly Wastes (Muda) of manufacturing and how elimination of these wastes is also a focus of the reliability process. Part 3 will discuss the overall objectives of Lean Manufacturing and parallel them with the overall objectives of the reliability process. Part 4 will discuss Poka- Yoke (mistake proofing) and see how several standard maintenance techniques are, in fact, Poka-Yoke techniques. A brief discussion of Kaizen and how both Lean Manufacturing and Maintenance and Reliability initiatives share these very same goals and objectives will summarize the entire report.
Precision Maintenance is talked about in many companies and implemented at many companies, many with great success, however most companies do not understand Precision Maintenance. In this paper I will clear up some misconceptions and untruths concerning it.
If you are thinking your operators are not important in helping with the management of asset reliability, think again. You cannot achieve an optimal state of asset reliability with the operators. This is a Great article on this topic.
Advanced Maintenance And Reliability (Best Maintenance and Reliability Practi...Ricky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Maintenance and reliability has taken great strides toward managing asset reliability by applying known best practices in maintenance and reliability finding that they can optimize reliability and reduce total cost and reduce risk by applying known best practices. However, if not most organizations are still trapped in the old way of thinking. Read this article and see where you stand.
10 Things an Operations Supervisor can do Today to Improve ReliabilityRicky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Continuing the series that started with maintenance technicians and supervisors, if you are new to the position of Operations Supervisor, what are some of the things you can begin working on immediately to improve reliability within the area you work?
The concepts contained within Lean Manufacturing are not limited merely to production systems. These concepts translate directly into the world of maintenance and reliability.
At the core of Lean Manufacturing philosophy is the concept of elimination of waste. It is about getting precisely the right resources to precisely the right place and at the right time to make only the necessary products in the most efficient manner possible.
The concepts of the elimination of waste can be easily traced to Benjamin Franklin. Poor Richard encouraged the concepts of elimination of waste in numerous ways. Adages like “Waste not, want not”, “A penny
saved is two pence clear…Save and have” and “He that idly loses 5s. [shillings] worth of time, loses 5s., and might as prudently throw 5s. into the river.” Yes, it was Benjamin Franklin that educated us about the possibility that avoiding unnecessary costs could return more profit than simply increasing total sales.
It was Henry Ford who took the concept of the elimination of waste and integrated it into daily operations at his manufacturing facilities. Mr. Ford’s attitude can be seen in his books, “My Life and Work” (1922) and in “Today and Tomorrow” (1926) where he describes the folly of waste and introduces the world to Just-In-Time manufacturing. Mr. Ford cites inspiration from Benjamin Franklin as part of the foundation of these concepts.
However, it wasn’t until Toyota’s Chief Engineer, Taiichi Ohno systematized these concepts and the concept of pull (Kanban) into the Toyota Production System and created a cohesive production philosophy that was focused on the elimination of waste, that the world was able to see the real power of Lean Manufacturing. Interestingly enough, when Mr. Ohno was asked about the inspiration of his system, he merely laughed and said he read most of it in Henry Ford’s book.
Part 1 of this report will focus on one very specific Lean Manufacturing method known as 5S. This section will detail how a 5S initiative focusing on a plant’s Preventive Maintenance (PM) Program can immediately unlock resources within that maintenance department and make the PM process significantly more effective and efficient. Part 2 will look at the Deadly Wastes (Muda) of manufacturing and how elimination of these wastes is also a focus of the reliability process. Part 3 will discuss the overall objectives of Lean Manufacturing and parallel them with the overall objectives of the reliability process. Part 4 will discuss Poka- Yoke (mistake proofing) and see how several standard maintenance techniques are, in fact, Poka-Yoke techniques. A brief discussion of Kaizen and how both Lean Manufacturing and Maintenance and Reliability initiatives share these very same goals and objectives will summarize the entire report.
Precision Maintenance is talked about in many companies and implemented at many companies, many with great success, however most companies do not understand Precision Maintenance. In this paper I will clear up some misconceptions and untruths concerning it.
Maintenance Skills Training for industry is a hot subject right now. In many areas of the country, companies are competing for skilled maintenance personnel.
“A Deloitte study found that the skills gap may leave an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled between 2018 and 2028, with a potential economic impact of $2.5 trillion”
The skill level of the maintenance personnel in most companies is well below what industry would say is acceptable. In the past, I have been involved with the assessment of the skill level for hundreds of maintenance personnel in the U.S. and Canada and found 80% of the people assessed scored less than 50% of where they need to be in the basic technical skills to perform their jobs. The literacy level of maintenance personnel is also a problem. In some areas of the United States we find that up to 40% of maintenance personnel in a plant are reading below the eighth grade level. After performing the Gunning FOG index, we find the reading level for mechanical maintenance personnel should be the twelfth year level and electrical maintenance personnel the fourteenth year level (associate degree).
Does it annoy you that in spite of regularly performing Preventive Maintenance (PM) on your equipment it continues to breakdown? Some may call this insanity – Continuing to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So what do you do? Maybe take a close look at your current PM Program.
There are known best practices which will not only enhance your PM program but also increase equipment reliability. Remember most work comes from PM and PdM and then it must be planned correctly, scheduled with production, executed to schedule and to specifications. If this occurs you will be seeing the results. "less breakdowns"
Check out this article and post your comments please.
"A great Maintenance Manager sees the relationship of poor performance and the lack of good maintenance routines."
"Poor performance always leads to the lack of maintenance routines or poor execution of existing routines."
- Rick Mullen, Global Reliability Leader, AB-InBev
A proactive maintenance technician is a highly trained professional who is an expert in his or her skills area, has knowledge of other skills areas, including safety and production, and has a desire to learn more. This professional knows and can
implement a failure-modes driven maintenance strategy for any piece of equipment.
A proactive maintenance technician uses knowledge and experience to ensure the maintenance process is optimized by making constructive recommendations to
management concerning improvement areas.
To ensure success, a proactive maintenance technician is proactive in everything he or she does. This person constantly reviews information to ensure procedures are accurate and issues are resolved quickly and does what is required to ensure the work is repeatable. Such a professional leads by example and takes responsibility for training new employees on how to be a proactive and effective maintenance technician.
Condition-Based Maintenance: 10 Steps Towards Continuous ImprovementOSIsoft, LLC
The move from calendar-based maintenance to predictive maintenance is an ongoing process. But where should you begin? These ten easy steps can provide some guidance for getting started.
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a proven, logical, sensible approach that helps companies improve reliability. Yet most companies are not getting the return they expected. They see RCM as too much trouble for too little reward. So that’s why we decided to publish this new report. Find out why RCM doesn't work, what needs to change and how to put RCM to work at your company so it doesn't become another Resource Consuming Monster.
We know RCM works however I wanted to share with you the 5 Biggest Mistakes people make using Reliability Centered Maintenance. Love to hear your comments or tell us what you have seen work and not work.
A DILO (Day In the Life Of)is a great way to begin the conversation of current state of a position and future state of it. I challenge everyone to sit down with their maintenance team and re-write what I have written for a Proactive Maintenance Tech.
Why do people not understand the P-F Curve? At a recent maintenance function, I asked 70 maintenance and reliability professionals how many of them had heard of the P-F Curve and only about 10% stated they had. From that 10%, only 1% felt like they truly understood it. This was shocking to me. I assumed everyone had heard about the P-F Curve and its intent.
The intent of the P-F Curve is to illustrate how equipment fails and how early detection of a failure provides time to plan and schedule the replacement or restoration of a failing part without interruption to production or operations.
Once you understand the P-F or PF Curve you will have a better awareness of how equipment fails.
Preventive Maintenance - Actions performed on a time- or machine-run-based schedule that detect, preclude, or mitigate degradation of a component or system with the aim of sustaining or extending its useful life through controlling degradation to an acceptable level. (Definition Source: SMRP Best Practices)
“My maintenance staff is highly trained and do not like using procedures.” If the statement is valid, and the cost of asset failure is not important to our operation, then your staff must have an unlimited and infallible memory – congratulations!
Did you know that the most complex equipment ever built was a nuclear submarine and that the first nuclear submarines experienced failures due to lack of effective procedures, thus ending in catastrophic failure?
If safety is number one in your organization, then repeatable, effective work procedures should be as well.
How does anyone Optimize their current CMMS? What is the path forward to success with our CMMS. John Day, former Engineering / Maintenance Manager for Alcoa Mt Holly is quoted in this presentation.
As the industry has evolved, so have the practices and philosophies for how and when to perform maintenance and lubrication. More options and tools are now available to guide the actions of personnel for nearly all lubrication tasks.
Having experience as a Maintenance Manager and Maintenance Consultant I wrote this article. The one Maintenance Manager that inspired me the most was Rick Mullen, former Engineering and Maintenance Manager at Anheuser Busch, who by far the #1 Maintenance Manager I ever met.
Top Tips for Improving your Quality ManagementClaire Healey
An essential guide to assist you, the Quality Expert in enforcing the standards you expect on a daily basis across the whole manufacturing plant. Improve product quality, traceability and Statistical Process Control (SPC) whilst preventing mix-up and product recalls in manufacturing.
How many organizations accept Hydraulic Leaks because they do not understand how hydraulic leaks is a major source of contamination to any hydraulic system. Use this Tool Box Talk to educate your maintenance staff.
Maintenance Skills Training for industry is a hot subject right now. In many areas of the country, companies are competing for skilled maintenance personnel.
“A Deloitte study found that the skills gap may leave an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled between 2018 and 2028, with a potential economic impact of $2.5 trillion”
The skill level of the maintenance personnel in most companies is well below what industry would say is acceptable. In the past, I have been involved with the assessment of the skill level for hundreds of maintenance personnel in the U.S. and Canada and found 80% of the people assessed scored less than 50% of where they need to be in the basic technical skills to perform their jobs. The literacy level of maintenance personnel is also a problem. In some areas of the United States we find that up to 40% of maintenance personnel in a plant are reading below the eighth grade level. After performing the Gunning FOG index, we find the reading level for mechanical maintenance personnel should be the twelfth year level and electrical maintenance personnel the fourteenth year level (associate degree).
Does it annoy you that in spite of regularly performing Preventive Maintenance (PM) on your equipment it continues to breakdown? Some may call this insanity – Continuing to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. So what do you do? Maybe take a close look at your current PM Program.
There are known best practices which will not only enhance your PM program but also increase equipment reliability. Remember most work comes from PM and PdM and then it must be planned correctly, scheduled with production, executed to schedule and to specifications. If this occurs you will be seeing the results. "less breakdowns"
Check out this article and post your comments please.
"A great Maintenance Manager sees the relationship of poor performance and the lack of good maintenance routines."
"Poor performance always leads to the lack of maintenance routines or poor execution of existing routines."
- Rick Mullen, Global Reliability Leader, AB-InBev
A proactive maintenance technician is a highly trained professional who is an expert in his or her skills area, has knowledge of other skills areas, including safety and production, and has a desire to learn more. This professional knows and can
implement a failure-modes driven maintenance strategy for any piece of equipment.
A proactive maintenance technician uses knowledge and experience to ensure the maintenance process is optimized by making constructive recommendations to
management concerning improvement areas.
To ensure success, a proactive maintenance technician is proactive in everything he or she does. This person constantly reviews information to ensure procedures are accurate and issues are resolved quickly and does what is required to ensure the work is repeatable. Such a professional leads by example and takes responsibility for training new employees on how to be a proactive and effective maintenance technician.
Condition-Based Maintenance: 10 Steps Towards Continuous ImprovementOSIsoft, LLC
The move from calendar-based maintenance to predictive maintenance is an ongoing process. But where should you begin? These ten easy steps can provide some guidance for getting started.
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a proven, logical, sensible approach that helps companies improve reliability. Yet most companies are not getting the return they expected. They see RCM as too much trouble for too little reward. So that’s why we decided to publish this new report. Find out why RCM doesn't work, what needs to change and how to put RCM to work at your company so it doesn't become another Resource Consuming Monster.
We know RCM works however I wanted to share with you the 5 Biggest Mistakes people make using Reliability Centered Maintenance. Love to hear your comments or tell us what you have seen work and not work.
A DILO (Day In the Life Of)is a great way to begin the conversation of current state of a position and future state of it. I challenge everyone to sit down with their maintenance team and re-write what I have written for a Proactive Maintenance Tech.
Why do people not understand the P-F Curve? At a recent maintenance function, I asked 70 maintenance and reliability professionals how many of them had heard of the P-F Curve and only about 10% stated they had. From that 10%, only 1% felt like they truly understood it. This was shocking to me. I assumed everyone had heard about the P-F Curve and its intent.
The intent of the P-F Curve is to illustrate how equipment fails and how early detection of a failure provides time to plan and schedule the replacement or restoration of a failing part without interruption to production or operations.
Once you understand the P-F or PF Curve you will have a better awareness of how equipment fails.
Preventive Maintenance - Actions performed on a time- or machine-run-based schedule that detect, preclude, or mitigate degradation of a component or system with the aim of sustaining or extending its useful life through controlling degradation to an acceptable level. (Definition Source: SMRP Best Practices)
“My maintenance staff is highly trained and do not like using procedures.” If the statement is valid, and the cost of asset failure is not important to our operation, then your staff must have an unlimited and infallible memory – congratulations!
Did you know that the most complex equipment ever built was a nuclear submarine and that the first nuclear submarines experienced failures due to lack of effective procedures, thus ending in catastrophic failure?
If safety is number one in your organization, then repeatable, effective work procedures should be as well.
How does anyone Optimize their current CMMS? What is the path forward to success with our CMMS. John Day, former Engineering / Maintenance Manager for Alcoa Mt Holly is quoted in this presentation.
As the industry has evolved, so have the practices and philosophies for how and when to perform maintenance and lubrication. More options and tools are now available to guide the actions of personnel for nearly all lubrication tasks.
Having experience as a Maintenance Manager and Maintenance Consultant I wrote this article. The one Maintenance Manager that inspired me the most was Rick Mullen, former Engineering and Maintenance Manager at Anheuser Busch, who by far the #1 Maintenance Manager I ever met.
Top Tips for Improving your Quality ManagementClaire Healey
An essential guide to assist you, the Quality Expert in enforcing the standards you expect on a daily basis across the whole manufacturing plant. Improve product quality, traceability and Statistical Process Control (SPC) whilst preventing mix-up and product recalls in manufacturing.
How many organizations accept Hydraulic Leaks because they do not understand how hydraulic leaks is a major source of contamination to any hydraulic system. Use this Tool Box Talk to educate your maintenance staff.
Abusing the word "Reliability" was an annoying thing for me, it's not linked to submission date of a document nor the training programs, yes these procedure can help in undirect way to improve the reliability, but when you consider your reliability program sole on it, then you are not doing reliability anymore.
So i decided to express my anger in peaceful way and i hope it can be a postive too.
for that i'll start to write a post and i'll call it "Real Reliability" to bust the myth around reliability, and i'll start with my first enemy "MTBF".
This for all the fed up guys from the wrong usage of "Reliability"
You wonder sometimes, is Reliability the same as Availability. Here's a sample, showing 2 ways to calculate Availability. (They are not the same, but at times we think so.)
Draft comparison of electronic reliability prediction methodologiesAccendo Reliability
A draft version of the paper that was eventually published as “J.A.Jones & J.A.Hayes, ”A comparison of electronic-reliability prediction models”, IEEE Transactions on reliability, June 1999, Volume 48, Number 2, pp 127-134”
Provide with the kind permission of the author, J.A.Jones
Solar trackers are the foundation of a utility-scale solar plant and their reliability affects energy production, uptime, and O&M costs; significantly impacting the economics of a project. In the near future it will become increasingly important for solar asset owners and investors to take tracker reliability into consideration. For tracker vendors, providing proven reliability and overall bankability of their systems will be a critical differentiator moving forward.
Reliability Maintenance Engineering Day 2 session 2 Reliability Techniques
day live course focused on reliability engineering for maintenance programs. Introductory material and discussion ranging from basic tools and techniques for data analysis to considerations when building or improving a program.
How to Reduce your MTTI/MTTR with a Single ClickSumo Logic
Learn how Sumo Logic enables users to drastically reduce MTTI and MTTR with a single click. In this deck, we cover:
- The power of log analytics for faster troubleshooting and root-cause analysis
- How machine learning & pattern recognition enable faster MTTI and MTTR
- How Sumo Logic's LogReduce and LogCompare features are helping users gain better control of their applications
Precision Maintenance is talked about in many companies and implemented at many companies, many with great success, however most companies do not understand Precision Maintenance. In this paper I will clear up some misconceptions and untruths concerning it.
Advanced Maintenance And Reliability (Maintenance and Reliability Best Pract...Ricky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Maintenance and reliability has taken great strides toward managing asset reliability by applying known best practices in maintenance and reliability finding that they can optimize reliability and reduce total cost and reduce risk by applying known best practices. However, if not most organizations are still trapped in the old way of thinking.
As Albert Einstein once said: "the significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were at when we created them".
A short topic paper on getting Leading and Lagging indicators out of Maximo. I use PM Compliance in my example. I don’t go into detail to the field level but I do point in general directions and provide some suggestions.
Site Reliability Engineering: An Enterprise Adoption Story (an ITSM Academy W...ITSM Academy, Inc.
Presenter: Perry Statham
SRE Squad Leader with IBM Cloud DevOps Services
In this presentation, the IBM DevOps Services SRE team will give a brief introduction to Site Reliability Engineering, then show how they adopted its principals in their existing enterprise organization.
7 Cases Where You Can't Afford to Skip Analytics TestingObservePoint
Data isn't inherently true—true data is true. So for your data strategy to work, you need to verify your analytics data is telling the truth.
In 7 Cases Where You Can’t Afford To Skip Analytics Testing, ObservePoint's VP Customer Success Patrick Hillery walks through how to avoid bad data quality at 7 critical breakage points. Hillery explains how to:
With the economy as it has been for the past decade it is important to understand how we all can make the bottom line better and maintain our equipment more efficient. This book is not in any way designed to be the end all to your maintenance problems, but rather a guide to help understand the importance of empowering your mechanics so they will be able to improve the work they do. The better they are at what they do, the better they will be to reducing maintenance costs.
Advanced Maintenance And Reliability (Best Practices in Maintenance and Relia...Ricky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Maintenance and reliability has taken great strides toward managing asset reliability by applying known best practices in maintenance and reliability finding that they can optimize reliability and reduce total cost and reduce risk by applying known best practices. However, if not most organizations are still trapped in the old way of thinking. Check out this awesome article.
Read this blog post by copying and pasting this link into your browser: http://www.cmc-consultants.com/blog/7-types-of-mistake-proofing-systems-that-improve-product-quality
Chinese factory managers often say things such as “these three people caused this issue”, “it is their fault”, and “these are human mistakes and they can’t be avoided”. However, one could argue that the factory’s systems are at fault. And who can develop and implement systems? The managers themselves, not their employees.
Which systems need to be put in place to avoid mistakes and improve product quality? Let’s look into 7 mistake proofing approaches that work...
Although the Predictive Maintenance (PdM) technologies themselves can get quite complicated, the basic concept of PdM is simple enough:
Most industrial equipment does not suddenly breakdown and stop working. The truth is equipment breaks down gradually, over a period of weeks or months. Furthermore, it gives off numerous warning signals along the way.
These early warning signs, such as slight changes in temperature, vibration or sound, can be detected by PdM technologies. As a result, PdM gives you time to plan, schedule, and make repairs before the equipment fails.
The bottom line, when it comes to maintenance, is that time is money. The difference in repair costs between the time a PdM specialist can detect an equipment problem until the time an operator notices it can be huge.
In fact, one study showed that the cost of PdM-driven, proactive maintenance is half as much as emergency, breakdown maintenance. No other maintenance strategy gives you more time for advanced planning and scheduling than PdM. That is why PdM should be your number one source of planned maintenance. Also, studies have proven that a well-planned repair job typically takes only half as much time as an unplanned job. Planned work is always more efficient and less costly than unplanned work.
Read more and please comment on this document.
Short-term and long-term solutions can increase reliability, asset availability, utilization, quality and capacity, but they’re not easy or simple. Look at the barriers that hold a plant back.
The United States lose manufacturing jobs everyday, plants are shutting down, so what is the problem. Companies struggle to find the nonexistent “silver bullet” for increasing reliability and equipment performance while reducing costs. Short-term and long-term solutions can increase reliability, asset availability, utilization, quality and capacity, but they’re not easy or simple. Look at the barriers that hold a plant back.
First is the belief that a failure means the equipment is broken. That’s wrong. A true failure of an asset is when it no longer meets the function required of it at some known rate or standard. For example, if a conveyor that’s supposed to operate at 200 meters per minute can’t, it has failed functionally, thus affecting revenue.
Think about it. Process Reliability Failures create higher losses than Asset Reliability Failures so it is time we woke up to this problem.
All organizations need a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan, but many are unsure what is appropriate or how to scope the organization’s needs. Operating with an insufficient DR plan leaves organizations vulnerable to negative business impacts in the event of a disaster. Organizations can save time and money by properly scoping their DR plan.
The process of examining your DR plan can be broken down into a series of steps:
* Determine the current DR capability which IT can provide
* Know what DR capabilities the business wants
* Align the business’ and IT’s DR priorities
Use this Storyboard to begin the process of building your organization’s ultimate DR plan.
Similar to The Seven Deadly Sins in Measuring Asset Reliability (20)
What does a "Day in the Life of a Proactive Maintenance Planner" look like. This article was writen based on my experience at Alcoa Mt Holly (Certified as World Class Maintenance).
Having worked with companies all over the world I decided to write this article based on my experience as a Maintenance Advisor and a Maintenance Leader.
How to know if your maintenance planning and scheduling is not effectiveRicky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Many times companies have Maintenance Planning and Scheduling however it is not effective as they like it to be. This article helps anyone who is struggling the Planning and Scheduling with a few ideas.
If you have questions email me at rsmith@worldclassmaintenance.org
Ever wondered what a "Day in the Life of a Proactive Maintenance Supervisor". Checkout this article and see how it matching where you are. If you have questions send Ricky an email to rsmith@worldclassmaintenance.org
The objective of the Parts Checkout process to ensure the right part is in stock when required by Maintenance / Operations to provide Production with Reliable Assets.
> Parts / Material Checkout Guiding Principles:
•All parts/material used for an asset will be charge to the asset via a Work Order
•No blanket work orders – blanket work orders lead to lack of failure information due to failure threads of like parts/material
•Overnight ordering of parts is an exception and not the general rule
•The Materials Management Process will be managed with Leading and Lagging KPIs
... and so much more
Best Maintenance Lubrication Practices are essential to
optimal life for ball and rolling element bearings.
There are four factors that are important when
lubricating bearings:
1. What type of lubrication?
2. How much lubrication?
3. How frequently should lubrication be applied?
4. How should the lubrication be applied to ensure
contamination control?
... and so much more covered on this document
Maintenance Planning and Scheduling is critical to success of any Maintenance Organization resulting in a significant increase in Wrench-time (Hands on Tool Time). Planning and Scheduling are two distinct functions which are dependent on each other.
Top 7 Reasons why Maintenance Work Orders are Closed Out AccuratelyRicky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Closing out work orders accurately is critical for leadership to make the “right decisions at the right time with accurate data” and it can only occur if work orders are “Closed with the Right Information/Data”.
If metrics and Key Performance Indicators are so important where are people pulling the data from without their work orders having the right data on them when they are closed into that dark hole called the CMMS or EAM.
Without good data you are lost and probably are making decisions based on passion and not facts.
Very few organizations pay attention to hydraulic leaks and how they can impact production capacity, asset reliability, and reactivity when a mitigation strategy is in place.
This Tool Box Talk may help you take that next step.
Most companies spend a lot of money training their maintenance personnel to troubleshoot a hydraulic system.
If we focused on preventing system failure then we could spend less time and money on troubleshooting a hydraulic system. We normally except hydraulic system failure rather than deciding not to except hydraulic failure as the norm. Let’s spend the time and money to eliminate hydraulic failure rather than preparing for failure.
Much has been written about lean manufacturing and the lean enterprise—enough that nearly all readers are familiar with the concepts as well as the phrases themselves. But what about lean maintenance?
Is it merely a subset of lean manufacturing? Is it a natural fall-in-behind spinoff result of adopting lean manufacturing practices?
Much to the chagrin of many manufacturing companies, whose attempts at implementing lean practices have failed ignominiously, lean maintenance is neither a subset nor a spinoff of lean manufacturing. It is instead a prerequisite for success as a lean manufacturer. This article will explain why.
Every wondered what the life of a Proactive Maintenance Technician looks like. This article was written based on my experience as a Proactive Maintenance Technician.
Preventive Maintenance Best Practices plus PM Optimization Workshop BrochureRicky Smith CMRP, CMRT
Join Ricky Smith for his Preventive Maintenance Best Practices plus PM Optimization Workshop, October 19-21 "Live" and "Virtual" (via internet). Check out the attached brochure.
The Seven Deadly Sins in Measuring Asset Reliability
1. The Seven Deadly Sins in Measuring
Asset Reliability
By Ricky Smith, CMRP
“The problem w ith Management is they’re
measuring the w rong things.”
― Peter Drucker
Sin #1 – Equipment Reliability is not measured.
Most companies don’t measure mean time between failures (MTBF), even
though it’s the most basic measurement that quantifies reliability. MTBF is the
average time an asset functions before it fails. So, why don’t they measure
MTBF? Let’s define reliability first before we go any further.
Reliability: The ability of an item to perform a required function under
stated conditions for a stated period of time
Sin #2: “We don’t really have failures”.
We have a Condition Monitoring / Predictive Maintenance program that detects
failures before a component or asset catastrophically fails. In this case the
definition of the term ‘failure’ must be re-examined. More often than not, when a
failure mode is detected by condition monitoring technologies, it requires some
form of intrusive maintenance to rectify the problem. Just because your CM/PdM
program gives you enough lead time to prevent catastrophic failure, it is a failure
never the less because it has pasted “P” on the PF Curve, as with all intrusive
maintenance, it also increases the risk of maintenance induced failure or ‘infant
mortality”. Treat all EM/PdM work orders as failures.
The PF Curve
2. Example: If condition monitoring detects a failure mode on an asset every 6
months, even with proper planning and scheduling, the asset becomes
unavailable twice a year. By ignoring work orders raised by condition monitoring,
you are merely treating the symptoms rather than going after the root cause.
What if we apply root cause and increase the failures rate from twice a year to
once every two years. Just a thought!
Insanity –
“doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result”
Sin #2: “We can’t measure MTBF in the same way for all of our assets
because not all of our plant is a continuous operation”.
Some assets run only on the day shift (8 hours) while others run 24 hours a
day. There should not be a misunderstanding of how MTBF is measured.
The same calculation is used: For example, If machine ‘x’ runs for 8 hrs a day
and fails 3 times a year, and machine ‘y’ runs for 24 hours a day and fails 9
times a year, the MTBF is the same for both assets. It is simply the number of
hours in operation divided by the number of failures. It’s that simple. Most of the
time identifying the exact measurement is not as important as knowing you
have a problem. Just a thought!
Sin #3: “Work orders don’t capture all emergency work”.
Many companies have rules such as,
“A work order will be written only if the equipment is down for more than
one hour.”
This rule doesn’t make sense. Let’s say, for example, a circuit overload on a piece
of equipment trips 100 times in a month. Many times, small problems lead to
major asset failure. Don’t wait until a small problem becomes a big one. Start
tracking MTBF and you’ll be on the road to reliability. Eventually, you’ll learn to
manage your assets proactively according to their health. Then, you’ll see your
MTBF improve dramatically.
Sin # 4: “Not every asset is loaded into the CMMS/EAM”.
This is a problem that makes writing an emergency work order impossible. If
you’re not tracking every asset down to the component level, you can’t possibly
identify any true reliability issue. Think about it this way; if 20% of your assets eat
up 80% of your resources, wouldn’t you want to identify that 20%, the bad
actors? Put all of your assets in your CMMS/EAM, track the MTBF and the bad
actors will become obvious. Validating your equipment hierarchy is the first step.
Recommendation: Read ISO14224
3. Sin #5: It isn’t important to measure MTBF because other metrics provide
equivalent value.
Yes, you can get asset reliability from other metrics, but keep it simple by using
MTBF. Count the number of breakdowns (the number of emergency work orders)
for an asset during a given time interval (by week). That’s all it takes to learn how
long the equipment runs (on average) before it fails.
Sin #6: “The maintenance organization is in such a reactive mode that
there’s no time to generate any metrics.”
They’re constantly scrambling merely to react to the latest crisis. But, taking a
small step in the right direction – tracking just one measure of reliability – will
reveal the 20% of the assets that are burning 80% of the resources. If you start
with the worst actor, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can rise out of the
reactivity quagmire.
For example, a plant manager who recently measured the MTBF for what he
called his “Top 10 Critical Assets” was shocked at the results. He expected the
combined MTBF for these assets would be around eight hours to nine hours. In
the first month of this initiative, he found that the actual MTBF was 0.7 hours.
You may find yourself in the same situation. You’ll never know the true reliability
status on your plant floor until you begin measuring it. Remember: The data is
the data whether one likes it or not.
Sin #7: “There are too many other problems to worry about right now
without being pressured to measure reliability, too”.
I’ve heard this many times and what it tells me is that the organization is in total
reactive mode. This organization deals only with the problem of the hour. If
20% of your assets are taking 80% of your resources, dig yourself out of the
problem by attacking the assets that cause the most pain – the “high payoff
assets” that will respond to a reliability improvement initiative.
We’ve got to stop fighting fires. The characteristics of adept firefighters include:
• High turnover of personnel (mostly in production).
• Maintenance costs continue to rise.
• Maintenance costs are capped before the month ends (“Don’t spend any
more money this month. We’re over budget.”)
• Every day is a new day of problems and chaos.
• Maintenance is blamed for missing the production goals.
It isn’t easy to fight fires and initiate reliability improvement at the same time, but
it can be done. Start measuring MTBF and attack the high-payoff assets.
Admit it, you cannot change a company’s culture from reactive to proactive
overnight, however you can eliminate reliability problems on one major system
at a time.
4. That’s where you’ll find a rapid return on investment. Change people’s activities
and behaviors slowly and you’ll transition to a proactive culture.
Measuring Asset reliability is the key to keeping a company profitable, increasing
its capacity and reducing its maintenance cost. In a future column, we’ll present
some reliability improvement ideas. Check out the results of measuring MTBF by
one company. They only measured MTBF of 900 Electric Motors for three years
applied while applying a couple known best practices.
If you want to measure MTBF Effectively, based on my experience, begin
measuring MTBF at the Section or System Level (see the Equipment
Taxonomy from ISO 14224 below. Once you have identified which Section or
System has the lowest reliability you then begin measure the Components or
Maintainable items in that specific Section or System.
If you would like a copy of the MTBF Users Guide or would like more
information please contact Ricky at rsmith@gpallied.com.
Visit my website for more information at: www.maintenancephoenix.com