reliability engineering

Publisher's Note: I will caution you that a) Bill Brinkley comes from the commercial Aviation industry where reliability is not optional and b) he pulls no punches when speaking to industrial maintenance professionals. I an interested in hearing what you can take away from this paper that was presented at IMC-2007. You can email me your comments or you can post them here.

In an airline environment, maintenance is king. An aircraft receives about 17 man-hours of maintenance for every flight hour. That may seem excessive - unless you are the one riding in that aircraft. So - the question is, do aircraft really break all that often and do they need that much maintenance? Are they that unreliable? The answer, of course, is no.

Aircraft are designed to be reliable, so why perform all that maintenance? Over ninety percent of the maintenance performed on an aircraft is preventive or servicing in nature. Preventive maintenance is done to maximize availability of the aircraft for operational service and minimize the number of failures occurring at inconvenient times or places.

Effective planning and scheduling are foundational elements for successful work management.

Well-defined and implemented planning and scheduling processes ensure that a plant's most important work will be done safely, efficiently and at the right time. Duke Energy professionals work diligently at improving their Midwest and Carolinas fleet's work processes through a Barrier Process. Work exceeding Estimated vs. Actual Hours targets is flagged, categorized and documented by technicians in the CMMS. These exceptions are reviewed weekly at a Barrier Meeting and assigned to plant personnel responsible for removing identified barriers. Barriers such as incomplete planning, incorrect parts, poor communication or coordination, scope creep, etc., result in unsafe situations, a frustrated workforce, plus a 10 - 20% productivity loss. With a clear focus on safety and asset reliability, Duke's planning and scheduling processes are sustainable and continuously improving because the Barrier Process energizes the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle for reliability.

Publishers Note: We recently challenged our good friend and maintenance expert Ricky Smith to tell us 10 things we can do today - not 10 things we can buy today - to improve reliability at our plants. No new software, no new hardware, no new consultants. Ricky did as Ricky usually does and showed up with goods!

We admit he did include one "buy recommendation" but we let it pass because it falls under US$100. Here is what he came back with. - Terrence O'Hanlon, CMRP