Articles

Improving Asset Contributions to the Bottom Line

What are your contributions to the bottom line? Many asset managers are often put in an awkward position when confronted with this question, which refers to the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. This question is not necessarily demanding to know the asset manager’s individual contributions to the bottom line, but the contributions and input of the maintenance system and the assets he or she manages to the overall bottom line.

Leadership for Reliability

Fostering Asset Reliability from the Floor Level

Conventional road maps and training indicate more than 70 percent of reliability initiatives fail because the programs supporting them lack backing by senior leadership. However, an equally significant aspect that can quickly undermine program success is the absence of buy-in from craft workers. Such was the case at the Y-12 National Security Complex, a U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility. Here’s how the facility turned things around by cultivating asset reliability from the floor level.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

How the Quest for Better Pumps Came to (Almost) Nothing: Part 1

Pumps are fluid machines that move liquids over short and/or long distances. They were invented well before the industrial revolution and even Archimedes tinkered with pumps, on or about 250 B.C., somewhere near the historic city of Siracusa in Sicily. Without pumps, modern process plants would not exist. But not all pumps are well constructed, well maintained, correctly installed, or properly operated. And while some pumps have stayed on-line without interruption for six years, others continue to experience random failures several times in the course of a year. Pump improvement can be both a career enhancer and a value-adding proposition, as this two-part article will show.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

The Keys to Solving Fatigue: The Silent Killer

Fatigue is a failure mode that every manufacturing plant will experience at some point and can become chronic if not solved. While understanding fatigue has advanced since its inception in the early 1800s, there are still some misunderstandings in manufacturing in solving these failures. A characteristic of fatigue failures is stress, which is typically below the yield strength of the material. This is what makes fatigue a silent killer.

Asset Condition Management

How Manufacturers Can Make IIoT A Profitable Reality

In manufacturing, a smart plant refers to a connected digital factory. However, when you look inside a typical plant today, you often see older infrastructure and assets. Common challenges that prevent manufacturers from achieving smart, fully connected plants can range from location – remote facilities sometimes without even basic Internet service or low connectivity – to issues of older assets that aren’t inherently IIoT-enabled. In the industrial world, these environments lead to stranded assets and up to 40 percent of a plant’s assets fall into this category.

Leadership for Reliability

Organizational Competency in Reliability

To be truly reliable, an organization must demonstrate sustainable competence in reliability. This means the organization, as a whole, routinely makes decisions and takes actions that support asset reliability. The reliability culture is the way it does business. It is considered the most effective and efficient mode of operation; it is the cultural norm.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

Mechanical Integrity Simplified

It’s horrific to read about fires in refineries. Granted, process safety management (PSM) principles, with a greater emphasis on mechanical integrity (MI), have been embraced across the globe, greatly reducing the number of incidents. However, citations remain high, with the U.S. having the highest number of them. What’s the problem? A consistent implementation and application of MI. This article attempts to simplify the MI program, with the hope that organizations can achieve 100 percent mastery in avoiding incidents.

Leadership for Reliability

Q&A with Terry McElrath

Leveraging extensive experience with start-ups and rapid growth scenarios, Terry is a valuable asset for companies seeking guidance on change management, developing new revenue lines, and organizational structure. Her broad areas of expertise include business development, content development, strategic partnerships, marketing strategy, communication, and event strategy and execution.

Articles

Improving Asset Contributions to the Bottom Line

Fostering Asset Reliability from the Floor Level

How the Quest for Better Pumps Came to (Almost) Nothing: Part 1

The Keys to Solving Fatigue: The Silent Killer

How Manufacturers Can Make IIoT A Profitable Reality

A New Digitalization Strategy Framework to Advance Reliability and Asset Management

Featured Reliability Leader: Terrence O’Hanlon

Organizational Competency in Reliability

Mechanical Integrity Simplified

How to Use Mechanical Integrity Inspections

Sustaining Life Span of Rotating Equipment in Plants

Q&A with Terry McElrath