Articles

Q&A with an Industry Leader - Susan Lubell & Ricky Smith

Uptime Magazine caught up with Susan Lubell and Ricky Smith, authors of the recently published book, “Root Cause Analysis Made Simple.” They shared some of the most frequently asked questions regarding root cause analysis (RCA) that are asked by not only maintenance practitioners, but also their production operations teams and management, who they need to support them in their work.

Asset Condition Management

How High Performance Oils and Greases Extend the Application Range for Sealed Bearings

The development of high performance perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricants dates back a few decades. These developments were both necessitated and accelerated by aerospace and aviation markets where lubrication at the extremes of low and high temperatures was far more important than it would be in the average industrial environment. Even beyond aviation and aerospace, PFPEs have served admirably whenever the higher initial cost was easily overcome by the far more important need to consistently meet and even exceed performance expectations.

Leadership for Reliability

Do You Fit the Bill? 8 Crucial Skills Maintenance Managers Must Have

As a maintenance reliability professional, you have technical training of some kind, basic knowledge of asset management principles, technical knowledge of the equipment you manage and practical experience from years working in the field. These are the hard skills needed to perform your job. However, technical education, training and knowledge will not give you the skills you need to effectively manage a team of maintenance professionals. Along with hard skills, you need a very particular set of soft skills to excel in your role. These skills will lead to greater productivity and efficiency across the maintenance team. More importantly, they will lead to less stress, greater job satisfaction and ongoing career achievement for you. These soft skills are:

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

Practical Plant Analysis: Understanding Viscosity’s Effects on Centrifugal Pump Performance

The current low oil market environment has forced many producers to look into efficient and cost-effective ways to do business. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of every engineer involved in the oil and gas sector, or any industry for that matter, to come up with innovative ways to analyze, understand and resolve problems plaguing their respective disciplines without incurring excessive costs.

Asset Condition Management

A Practical Guide to Emissivity in Infrared Inspections

Many of you are probably familiar with spot temperature guns, those infrared (IR) test tools where you point a laser beam at an object (e.g., motor, pump, fluorescent light ballast, air conditioning or heating duct, or your barbecued steak). Point, shoot and voila! You have a temperature on the LCD display.

Leadership for Reliability

Leadership in Reliability Central Arizona Project

Most people are aware that the State of Arizona has grown considerably over the past few decades. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the state’s population grew 40 percent from 1990 to 2000, second only to Nevada. Phoenix, the state’s largest city, stands today as the nation’s sixth largest city and is poised to be fifth soon. Interestingly, the five cities besting Phoenix in population all reside on great bodies of water along the East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast and Great Lakes, each with a river, port and shipping fleet. Contrast that to the metropolitan area of Phoenix with 4.4 million people living in a desert community with an annual average rainfall of less than eight inches. Ever wonder how that is even possible?

Asset Management

Internet of Utilities Asset Management

With the advancement of new technologies, the world is moving toward intelligent devices and assets. Although sensors have been around for a long time, they have always been local to a machine and do a specific job, without much communication to the outside world. But if these sensors can communicate with other sensors, machines and human beings over the Internet, then this setup can form an Internet of intelligent devices.

Leadership for Reliability

A Journey to Shape Reliability Excellence at BMS - Part 2

Part 1, published in Uptime Magazine’s December/January 2016 issue, discussed the initial implementation of Uptime Elements at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS), including an exercise in which our sites prioritized the elements to determine our path going forward as a company. As we wrapped up our exercise, the sites were challenged with taking this framework back to perform similar exercises and integrate the framework into their local strategies. Part 2 demonstrates how the adoption of a common framework translates at the site level and how the unique use of this framework begins to drive the culture at BMS.

Work Execution Management

Get the Bugs Out With the Uptime Elements

Pop Quiz...

In the next 10 seconds, close your eyes and recite your maintenance department’s mission statement. Ready ... 3-2-1 ...

Go!!!

Probably 99 percent of you sat in complete and utter silence during those 10 seconds. But before you go off feeling guilty about being a subpar employee, you should really think about just what makes your mission statement so unmemorable. If one had to guess, more than likely it is too long and filled with vague buzzwords that make absolutely zero impact in how you approach your work.

At this point, you are probably thinking, “Okay, tell me what is the perfect mission statement for a maintenance department.” Well, since you asked nicely, here it is ...

Articles

Controlling the Silent Killers of Strategic Asset Management - Part 2

Q&A with an Industry Leader - Susan Lubell & Ricky Smith

Uptime Award Winners 2015

How High Performance Oils and Greases Extend the Application Range for Sealed Bearings

Do You Fit the Bill? 8 Crucial Skills Maintenance Managers Must Have

Practical Plant Analysis: Understanding Viscosity’s Effects on Centrifugal Pump Performance

A Practical Guide to Emissivity in Infrared Inspections

Leadership in Reliability Central Arizona Project

Internet of Utilities Asset Management

A Journey to Shape Reliability Excellence at BMS - Part 2

Get the Bugs Out With the Uptime Elements

10 Components of a Successful Vibration Program: Part 2