Articles

Systematizing Your Asset Management Operation

In the movie Deliverance, Burt Reynolds's character says, "Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything." That statement is never truer than in discussions about asset management. When you're focused on what you already know, it's easy to miss a better way of doing things

Smart Vibration Analysis

It’s a commonly known fact that machine faults can be detected by changes in the vibration of the machinery. It’s also apparent that non-fault related conditions are also detectable in the vibration data. This means that everything related to a machine, good or bad, will show up in some way. Leading indicators, at very low amplitudes, show up in the vibration spectra. As a fault condition worsens, the damage rapidly becomes more obvious and easier to identify in the vibration signature. Once a fault is positively identified, an analyst can sometimes sort through the historical data and often identify the leading indicator that eventually led to the fault condition.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

RELIABILITY: CONCEPTS and TRENDS

While the word reliability is frequently used, unfortunately, the way it is used ignores its true context and real implication. With the various improvement techniques in asset improvement, the use of the reliability word has created a constant advertising siege.

Work Execution Management

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

"Sometimes I wonder if the maintenance reliability community (and now the asset management community) are making any progress at all."
- Reliability Guru Terrence O'Hanlon, CEO/Publisher Uptime magazine and Reliabilityweb.com

What has changed in last 10, 20, 50 years? Have you noticed any changes? There are some things that have changed and some that have stayed the same.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

From Fighting Fires to Achieving World-Class Reliability

What It Takes to Change an Ingrained Culture

The faces on the group that showed up for my training today look rough, weathered and exhausted. As they walk into the classroom wearing the standard deep blue version of the maintenance uniform with their name over the pocket, each is carrying a cup of coffee and their emergency lifeline: the walkie-talkie. As we make our way through introductions, I let them know I started my career as a tradesperson, went through an apprenticeship program and worked as a journeyman while going to night school for reliability engineering.

Leadership for Reliability

Unleash the Potential of Your Reliability Function

It is a resounding fact that the need for advancement in the plant maintenance field gave birth to the function of reliability. But isn't it about time we disconnect this child from its umbilical cord and allow the reliability function to stand on its own feet, independent from maintenance? Shouldn't we now let this child unleash the true potential it has to offer to the industry by being an autonomous external entity, focusing on asset reliability at every level of asset lifecycle management (ALM)?

Work Execution Management

How to Build a High Performance Maintenance Team

A few years ago, this author inherited perhaps the world's most underperforming, unreliable, unpredictable, unacceptable and all other antonyms that are an antithesis for anything positive, maintenance team. The extreme lack of performance left all sorts of carnage piled up at the front door of the unemployment office. Maintenance managers did not last longer than 18 months before quitting or getting fired. To be fair, it was the result of long-term neglect and a few bad decisions by upper management. Nonetheless, the requirements of the job was to roll up the shirt sleeves, do a deep dive and fix it.

Leadership for Reliability

Human Capital and the Internet of Things: Managing Talent and Leveraging Experience

by Burt Hurlock

If you have children aspiring to attend college, then you know that somewhere between the time of their birth and the present, the world changed. It went from valuing being well-rounded to valuing specialization. Whether that's a healthy development is a worthy debate, but not the purpose of this article. This article explores the role of the connected world in propagating specialization and how specialization has the potential to supercharge the value of old-fashioned human judgment.

5S Methods Enhance Green Manufacturing

By Jordy Byrd, public relations specialist with Graphic Products

Manufacturing industries play a tug-of-war between the public and private sectors, each demanding the fastest, cheapest, and highest-quality products - with the lowest environmental impact.

Cap-and-trade emissions policies, paired with limited natural resources, have changed the face of modern industry. As a result, lean companies, particularly those with established 5S systems, are one step ahead of the green curve.