The data suggests that at best cost cutting provides a 50% chance of improving company performance (at worst 14%). Why the, is cost cuttings viewed as one the primary means of improving financial performance even it is has a low probability for success?

It may be necessary under specific circumstances, but often it is not. So why do senior managers often persist in enforcing cost cutting? Possible reasons include:

* Executives don’t view layoffs as a possible admission of personal failure. (Why were all of those people on the payroll in the first place?)

* It demonstrates a bias for action

* It is easy

* It does not requires a lot of leadership skill

* It CAN pressure people into being more creative about doing their jobs more efficiently and to eliminate waste

* “Everybody does it”; it is a generally accepted practice that is often warmly received on Wall Street with its focus on quarterly profits

* Executives are overconfident in believing that they can beat the odds

* It represents competitive parity since most companies seem to do it

* Executives have never personally experiences a layoff. Perhaps if they had they might have greater empathy for the pains they are causing

* Perhaps most importantly, they often do not fully appreciate that costs are a consequence of your business system design. If you do not change your fundamental business system design, but you remove resources from the system, performance will most likely decline

Tip excerpted from the book -Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools: What Tool? When? by Ron Moore

You can participate in a Ron Moore workshop at IMC-2007, The 22nd International Maintenance Conference, December 4-7, 2007 in Daytona Beach Florida
http://www.maintenanceconference.com

Buy a copy of Ron Moore’s new books at Amazon.com

Most of us would agree that infrared inspection of electrical distribution and other critical electric equipment is money well spent. It is important to remember that Infrared thermography is a very diverse technology with many other uses.

On your next inspection why don’t you spend a little extra time and take a look at your critical mechanical systems such as: motors, bearings, boilers, steam traps and tanks. Problems are nothing more than failures that surprise us.

Tip provided by Jeffrey L. Good
Vision Infrared Services
http://www.visioninfrared.com
>From the article “A Golden Opportunity”
Uptime Magazine - May 2007

Request your FREE subscription to Uptime Magazine

It is no longer only the maintenance department that has something to gain from improved asset management. The wider organization should also benefit from optimized inventory and improved procurement.

The selection and implementation of the right EAM system will have a dramatic impact on your asset availability and reliability and therefore the bottom line and ultimate success of your organization. Lawson has created a guide to help organizations ask the right questions when setting out to procure a computerized solution to help manage, plan and execute their company’s asset management and maintenance strategy. Click here to download your copy now.

Download your copy of the Enterprise Asset Management Solution Guide

When scanning overhead electrical lines for corona, tracking or arcing, as well as for electrical interference (or, TV/Radio interference) scan from downwind to upwind. The electrical discharge going to atmosphere is subject to wind direction, scanning from downwind to upwind may allow the end-user to hear to sound better.

Tip provided by Jim Hall
Ultra-Sound Technologies
http://www.ultra-soundtech.com

Find Out More About Ultrasound Training

The 7th reliability deliverable prior to starting up equipment is “All Operation Standard work instructions including Plant Safety Management (PSM) activities are complete and validated.” Operation standard work instructions are important reliability tools. These instructions provide the information on how to safely change over the equipment to run the different products, operate the machine to meet design performance, perform quality checks to catch defects at the earliest possible point and do machine checks to determine when a component has started to fail. If any or all of these instructions are left to operator discretion: safety issues, defects, waste and unplanned downtime will be the result.

Tip provided by Kevin Lewton
MetDemand LLC
http://www.metdemand.com

iPresentation invitation:Starting-Up Reliable Plants

Vectron announced the release of the solid-state low shear ViSmart viscosity sensor packaged at 0.5 inches diameter and 3 inches long. The sensor measures viscosity of oil from 1 to 500 centipoise while rated for temperatures up to 125˚C, with custom options and configurations available.

Find Out More About The New Viscosity Sensor by Vectron Sensors

Avoiding a disconnected Root Cause Analysis:

When conducting Root Cause Analysis investigators should always be at the failure scene at the time the equipment is opened. The benefit to the investigation is enormous because when equipment is disassembled the evidence is removed and many times discarded quickly in an effort to get back to production.

The advantage to the investigator is from a positional view of the failed area. When you are there the investigative process of mapping the failure scene can be accomplished accurately using video, digital pictures, and drawings.

This becomes valuable later when the RCA team meets to discuss the possible failure scenarios based on the failure scene. If you have to rely on third party information it is likely skewed from the original scene. This can slow your RCA down because now you have to put the initial first viewing together based on people’s memories before you can continue your analysis.

If what you are told is incorrect then your RCA is started using non-factual information and could end with non-factual conclusions.

Tip provided by Mark Latino
Reliability Center Inc.
http://www.reliability.com

Find Out More About PROACT Root Cause Analysis Leadership Certification Programs

Understanding the Time Waveform
Demodulation

Many users of vibration analysis instruments do not get the full value of their investment. Why? Because they rely mostly on only analyzing vibration spectra. What is the problem with this? The fact is that the basic signal being measured is a time waveform. From there, the instruments create vibration spectra that can be analyzed.

The reason the time waveform has fallen into obscurity is that until now most data collectors did not have enough speed or memory to save significant amounts of time waveforms. The most modern data collectors now offer up to 1 Gig of memory, allowing the collection and analysis of “long time waveforms”. Waveforms offer insight into the source/causes of vibrations.

Tip provided by Ron Sullivan
Commtest
Makers of the new VB7
http://www.commtest.com

Request your FREE e-Book: Beginner’s Guide to Machine Vibration by Commtest