Articles

A Journey to Shape Reliability Excellence at Bristol-Myers Squibb - Part 1

The journey of reliability at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) is not unlike that of many other companies. We have seen great successes, missed opportunities, supported reliability efforts and a focus on various initiatives. Like others, our journey continues as it always has….or not. There is a changing atmosphere developing. A paradigm shift, if you will. The culmination of many small changes coming together to create something special. Our global community of reliability professionals, a talented and special group of people, were ready when the opportunity presented itself. Ready to take the next step in our journey to excellence. Ready to collaborate on our direction as a community. Ready to transform from reliability professionals into reliability leaders. Ready to provide a sufficient benefit to fellow employees, shareholders, the environment, our community and the patients we serve.

Asset Condition Management

10 Components of a Successful Vibration Program: Part 1

Understanding the 10 components of a condition monitoring (CM) program is the first step in making them work to support you and your organization’s goals. The 10 main components comprising a condition monitoring program are shown in Figure 1. Each of the components relates to and affects all of the others. Like the supports of a structure, they all must be balanced for the structure to stand. This is the introduction to a 10-part series covering each of the 10 components of a successful program. A more in-depth handling of the subject matter can be found in the book, Audit It. Improve It! Getting the Most from Your Vibration Monitoring Program by Alan Friedman, available at the MRO-Zone Bookstore.

Work Execution Management

10 Ways to Reduce Reactive Maintenance

This article provides 10 distinct actions you can take to become more proactive. As you will see, the asset management system (AMS) plays a major role. Typically, users struggle to leverage the AMS in support of asset reliability, but the reason for this simply may be because you need a more encompassing set of instructions. So, here they are.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

Why Are People Afraid of RCM?

It’s been nearly 20 years since I first learned about reliability centered maintenance (RCM). As part of the Kodak Park Maintenance and Reliability Team, I was one of a few people who volunteered to take a few courses in RCM and report back to the team on the viability of the tool. I had no idea at the time that two decades later, I would be facilitating and instructing RCM at companies in nearly every country around the world. It’s strange sometimes how quickly things change; one minute you’re a maintenance team leader and the next you’re facilitating reliability centered maintenance for a living.

Leadership for Reliability

Repair vs. Replace: How to use Lifecycle Cost Analysis to Determine the Threshold Limit

“If maintenance costs get high enough, we’ll just replace it.” This phrase represents the prevailing attitude about asset management that is taught in graduate business schools and heard in conference rooms in most, if not all, manufacturing and production facilities around the globe. From the perspective of reliability concepts, the phrase is a manifestation of a belief system that represents an inaccurate understanding of where high maintenance costs come from and what the proper method for reducing them would be. From a financial perspective, the phrase is correct at face value, but the actual threshold limit for the replacement decision point is substantially higher than what is commonly used in industry. This article contains an explanation of the logical pitfalls of the commonly held beliefs, as well as an explanation of the calculation of the threshold limits for the replacement decision.

Reliability Engineering for Maintenance

RPM Method + RCM = Reliability

Picture this: It’s Monday morning and you’re the maintenance manager of an industrial plant. On your desk is a printout of 432 open work orders and the operations manager is screaming because air compressor #2 just tripped for the third time this month. To make matters worse, you just remembered two of your technicians went fishing for the week. The question is: “What can this maintenance manager do to improve this situation?” The obvious answer is to go fishing with the two technicians. Maybe a better question to ask is: "What can be done to improve plant performance?"

Asset Condition Management

Proactive Maintenance Saves NIF Shot Time and Money

At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest laser system, we treat our assets the way a good medical doctor treats patients. We are proactively keeping tabs on the health of the equipment using asset condition management (ACM) techniques. We do not perform any intrusive maintenance until asset conditions require it.

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.

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.

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)?

Articles

A Journey to Shape Reliability Excellence at Bristol-Myers Squibb - Part 1

10 Components of a Successful Vibration Program: Part 1

10 Ways to Reduce Reactive Maintenance

Why Are People Afraid of RCM?

Repair vs. Replace: How to use Lifecycle Cost Analysis to Determine the Threshold Limit

RPM Method + RCM = Reliability

Proactive Maintenance Saves NIF Shot Time and Money

How to Build a High Performance Maintenance Team

RELIABILITY: CONCEPTS and TRENDS

Systematizing Your Asset Management Operation

Smart Vibration Analysis

Unleash the Potential of Your Reliability Function