October 23, 2008 Top 5 Most Anticipated Human Asset Management Sessions At IMC-2008
The team at Reliabilityweb.com and Uptime Magazine have been busy gearing up for this year’s highly anticipated International Maintenance Conference (December 8-11) in Bonita Springs, Florida.
Early bird discounts, spouse meal pass, hotel savings and Certificate workshops are still available.
Find out more about the top five Human Asset Management sessions available exclusively at IMC-2008 that we’re most looking forward to.
October 23, 2008 Maintenance Fallacy #11: Reliability continues to degrade because of equipment age
The failure curves below show the findings of an extensive RCM study led by F. Stanley Nowlan and Howard F. Heap of United Airlines. It has been almost 30 years since Nowlan and Heap published “Reliability-Centered Maintenance”, the ground-breaking study that changed maintenance forever. Nowlan and Heap concluded that there are 6 basic failure patterns.
The first three failure patterns:
Pattern a)=4% Bath
Pattern b)=2% Wear out
Pattern c)=5% Fatigue
When combined, they only represent about 11% of failures that would benefit from observing the operating wear out age and failure characteristics. Time-based maintenance works only for a small percentage of components, and then only when there is solid information on their age related failure characteristics.
What should be done to predict or prevent the failure?
The remaining three failure patterns:
Pattern d)=7% Initial Break-in period,
Pattern e)=14% Random
(this is not trendable – it never fails the same twice for the same reason)
Pattern f)=68% Infant Mortality – (In a significant number of situations, the very act of maintenance itself introduced a subsequent failure of the equipment).
The remaining 3 were combined to show that 89% cannot benefit from a limit on operating age so for 89% of your equipment, Condition Based Maintenance should be applied and not Time Based replacement.
That means you should be monitoring, observing and taking non-intrusive actions, such as lubricating and cleaning, until a condition signals that corrective action is necessary. What it also means is that using the excuse of “it just wore out” isn’t going to cut it for 89% of your assets.
Do you still believe that believe that most of your equipment just “wears out”? Do you still believe in this Maintenance fallacy?
By Ricky Smith CMRP
Allied Reliability
C:843-696-2622
October 23, 2008 Keep Your ID Fans Running
STOP! READ THIS! There is a way to keep your ID fans running and eliminate unscheduled shutdowns.
Increase productivity and reduce maintenance costs…
October 23, 2008 Lean Maintenance Tip
In traditional Lean Manufacturing, several waste areas are indentified. These areas have analogies in Lean Maintenance, and some represent major losses.
• Over-production is one of the uncommon wastes in maintenance. An example is when you are rebuilding valves and might rebuild too many for immediate use.
• Time wasted in waiting is a major loss in maintenance. We are always waiting for another trade, for operations, for drawings. For something. This waste is one of the items that can be reduced by multi-skilling, planning, and scheduling.
• Time wasted moving people, tools or materials to and from the jobs. This waste takes up over a quarter of the day of a typical maintenance person. Effective planning can reduce this waste by half.
• Wasted materials are a problem in maintenance and particularly in projects. Sometimes it is difficult to return surplus project material or to find other uses for them.
• There is significant waste in the maintenance inventory, which is a ripe area for Lean work. We want to have just the materials we need. No more – no less.
• Wasted motion is a difficult area because each maintenance job is different and there is no universal solution. Major organizations such as UPS (the package delivery and Logistics Company) have studied maintenance work, and tech ways that waste less motion.
• The final waste is defects, or maintenance jobs that have to be reworked. This waste is the bane of the maintenance department. Proper tools, training, and parts, reduce this effect, but even vigilance will only reduce it and nothing can completely eliminate it.
There are opportunities for cutting waste and making improvements in every maintenance operation.
Tip excerpted from Lean Maintenance by Joel Levitt
(Industrial Press)
October 23, 2008 Leadership Tip
What Lessons Are You Giving?
Take a moment to reflect on the lessons you’re providing to your team:
• Do you follow ALL the rules and procedures of your organization?
• Do you treat (and think about) EVERYONE with dignity and respect?
• Do you always tell the truth?
• Do you always keep your promises and commitments?
• Do you typically place others’ best interests before your own?
• Do you typically give your best effort and avoid “cutting corners”?
• Do you avoid using organizational resources for personal purposes?
• Do you stand up for what’s right and act to stop misconduct by others?
These, and scores of behaviors just like them, set the pace for your work group, identify your personal integrity, and determine how you will ultimately be judged as a leader.
Tip excerpted from Leading To Ethics: 10 Leadership Strategies For Building A High-Integrity Organization by
By Eric Harvey, Andy Smith, and Paul Sims
Find out more about 10 Leadership Strategies For Building A High-Integrity Organization
October 23, 2008 Life Cycle Engineering’s Rx Definitions
Unclear communication can lead to expensive mistakes – costly downtime and equipment failure. Life Cycle Engineering’s Reliability Excellence (Rx) Definitions provides a common ground for effective communication. Using this glossary of terms could help avoid frustrating miscommunication.
October 23, 2008 Proactive Maintenance Tip
New Installations
It is well known that many machines contain defects when newly installed. These defects can range from improper installation, caused by poor footings and poor alignment, to defective parts within the machine, such as bad bearings, bent shaft, and so forth.
A proactive maintenance program will include testing on new installations for the purpose of certification and verification that the performance is held to a rigid standard. The same standards are applied to rebuilt and overhauled equipment.
This type of testing can also lead to the establishment of specific performance specifications that in many cases are more stringent than the equipment manufacturer’s specifications and tolerances.
Tip excerpted from Introduction to Machine Vibration by Glenn White
Find our more about Introduction to Machine Vibration by Glenn White
October 23, 2008 Maintenance Management 201 Tip
Tip 8 - Advanced tools will not provide full benefit unless the foundational processes are sound
Many organizations devote significant resources to implement the latest “three-letter acronym” tools before they are ready, and are surprised when they do not achieve the planned results. Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) cannot yield anticipated cost savings because the organization cannot implement the new tasks. Predictive maintenance (PdM) finds equipment problems in the early stage of degradation, but the workforce is consumed with “fix it now” emergent work and cannot make repairs before failure occurs. Autonomous maintenance, one of the pillars of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), falls flat because the maintenance workforce is overloaded and cannot respond to the problems that operators detect. A “Just in Time” (JIT) parts ordering process cannot function until a there is low demand for emergency parts and a good inventory control system is in place.
Much like building a house, the foundation must be completed before the walls go up or the building will not stand. Foundational elements for Maintenance include a complete set of “master data” and sound processes to control the work that gets done. Master data includes a complete list of all plant equipment that is ranked according to criticality and a thorough spare parts catalog of both stocked and non-stock spare parts. Work control processes include a well-conceived Work Order system (including effective Planning and Scheduling), a sound process for conducting basic maintenance (including a good lubrication program), and a fully functional inventory control system. These foundational elements will allow you to get control of both the work that has to be done and the condition of the equipment, enabling the advanced concepts to achieve their potential.
Tip provided by Bruce Hawkins
MRG
http://www.mrginc.net
