Why: Process failures are clearly money issues because when the process ceases to run, the company has no income, thus process failures are to be abhorred for killing the money machine.

When: Implementing a policy before constructions of new facilities is important to use the policy as design criteria. When implemented with older facilities the task is more difficult and old facilities may never be able to comply with the objectives at a reasonable cost alternative.

Where: Responsibility for implementing the policy lies with: 1) the chief operating officer must authorize the policy and ensure the policy is applied thorough out the operations under the administrative directive which sets the guidelines for financial and engineering measures, 2) the engineering/R&D executives are responsible for ensuring the policy is implemented by systems engineering, design engineering, project engineering, pilot plant engineering and test engineering, 3) the manufacturing executive is responsible for ensuring that the reliability policy is carried out by the materials and procurement functions ,industrial engineering functions, manufacturing engineering functions, operations functions, and maintenance functions, 4) the quality assurance executive is responsible for the dissemination of the reliability policy, it's annual review and auditing for compliance to the spirit of the policy, and for making recommendations to the chief operating officer concerning continued relevance, applicability, and effectiveness, and 5) the human resources executive is responsible for ensuring that ll new employees are indoctrinated into the purpose and implementation of the reliability policy as a part of the operation's mission, goals, and priorities.

These definitions are written by H. Paul Barringer and are also posted on his web site at www.barringer1.com

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