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By Cliff Williams

How many 10 year olds who, when asked at school “What would you like to be when you grow up?” replied “A Maintenance Manager”. A safe bet is that the answer is none. How many 10 year olds would have any idea what a maintenance manager is or how many 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds…. you get the picture? When you think about it, there is no real reason, or way that those not directly involved in Maintenance management, could understand what it is. When was the Last time you saw that a super hero’s alter-ego was a Maintenance Manager, or what was the title of the last romantic movie you took your significant other to see where the romantic white knight came in the guise of an Asset Reliability Professional? I’m looking forward to a new television series entitled “Miami (or New York) RCM” where teams of investigators rush out and carry out vibration analysis. The team gets together to examine infra-red footage and I just can’t wait for the close –up of the oil analysis slide under the microscope.

Measuring Sustainable Change

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

by David A. Army, CMRP, SAMI and Gwendolyn Army, LCPC

The Perspective

Many times, business professionals have been involved in changes to processes or systems where they have relied on seat of the pants knowledge to determine whether or not they were successful. More often than not, the initiative flounders once their attention has been turned to the new “flavor of the month” and its back to business as usual.

Work Execution Management

A Perfect Storm for an MRO Stockroom Crisis

There is a multi-headed monster of a crisis barreling toward us.

This crisis in the sourcing, stocking and justifying of maintenance, repairs and operations (MRO) spares has been developing since the 1990s and will likely get worse before it gets better. The core of the crisis and the reasons for it are distinct. These distinct contributors form the perfect storm of trouble for any maintenance department, especially ones that have implemented lean principles. The solution is surprisingly in the domain of asset management.

A Better Black Liquor Process

Finding Vacuum Leaks in a Multi Effect Evaporator

by Karl Hoffower and Allan Rienstra

So many industrial processes depend on creating a stable vacuum, but system leaks impair process efficiency and, if left unchecked, will shut it down. Finding these leaks can be challenging in noisy plant environments and reliability engineers must weigh the balance between the costs of downtime versus the cost of continuing production with a leaky, inefficient system.

How is Vibration Measured?

By Commtest Instruments

Fig 34

In the last section we identified the most important vibration analysis tool as the spectrum. When we measure machine vibration we usually measure vibration spectra, since the spectrum of a vibrating component tells us a great deal about the condition of the component as well as about the cause of vibration. Naturally it is vital that the spectrum, which gives such valuable information, be obtained accurately.

What guidelines must be observed to ensure measurements are accurate? How should measurements be taken and for which machines should they be taken?

Breaking Through Glass Ceilings

Thoughts on Implementing Organizational Change

by R. Keith Mobley, MBB, CMRP

Have you ever been involved in an attempt to improve the performance of your department or one function, such as maintenance or quality, in your plant or corporation? Ever wonder why the attempt did not work at all or failed to reach its full potential? If you have, the reason was probably a list of deficiencies or omissions, or perhaps it was because cosmic forces preordained that improvement is not possible. Sound familiar?

Detective Maintenance

When we think about maintenance strategies, the words predictive, preventive, corrective, and breakdown spring to mind. There is however an important class of tasks that we do to ensure that our equipment and Plant remains safe and productive. These tasks are based on a Detective Maintenance strategy. They help us win our licence-to-operate and ensure long term viability. With machinery and Plants becoming increasingly more complex, the proportion of such tasks in the total maintenance program is growing.

Introduction to the Process Of Change

Excerpted from Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A User's Guide by Stephen J. Thomas (Courtesy of Industrial Press)

Several years ago, I was part of a program to introduce the concept of "quality" into our plant. For a very large fee, we hired a consultant to work with us and make our "quality process" a success. Site management imposed ground rules on the project team, most of which (in retrospect) set us up for failure. The program had a kick-off date less than three months from the time it was introduced to management. With such a tight timeframe, there was inadequate time to prepare for the meetings that were an integral part of the process. To make matters worse, the meetings were to be mandatory for everyone. The official message was, "meetings are mandatory, participation is voluntary."

Leadership for Reliability

Reaching For The Top

Creating a New Partner with Reliability Centered Operations

by Paul R. Casto, CMRP

To optimize both maintenance risk and cost, the interrelationships between reliability, maintenance and operations must be considered and leveraged to capitalize on the strengths of each. Reliability Centered Operations (RCO) is an approach that optimizes these relationships through the application of a maintenance strategy built from failure analysis that will yield more expansive and cost-effective risk reduction tasks.

Green Reliability

U.S. Energy Information Administration / International Energy Outlook 2010

World marketed energy consumption increases by 49 percent from 2007 to 2035 in the Reference case. Total energy demand in the non-OECD countries increases by 84 percent, compared with an increase of 14 percent in the OECD countries.