Section » Reliability Engineering
Reliability reduces waste of time, talent and resources
Following along with my last blog, “Reliability is a green initiative”, I would like to talk about waste reduction. Waste is seen in many different forms in manufacturing. Some of these wastes include physical, time and talent. Physical waste is anything that is left over from the process that has to be discarded, recycled or sold. For every
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Reliability is a ‘green initiative’
Demand for products has declined in many parts of the world, and with more manufacturing being shipped overseas, reliability of our existing processes is even more important than before. Many of my friends in different industries have told me about all of the initiatives being done to green up their
Keep maintenance simple: Use senses and sensibility
What good is it to have advanced maintenance techniques if they have no real benefit over simple basic maintenance? Now I am not saying go and throw away all of your fancy toys. What I am saying is that you don’t have to have advanced tools for every maintenance task. I have seen many maintenance
The Rodney Dangerfield of predictive technologies
In the past decade, the capabilities of many condition-based assessment tools, sometimes called predictive technologies, have significantly expanded. The hardware has become more compact, more rugged and much easier to use. The companion software applications have become more powerful with exponentially
What reliability-improvement tools should I invest in?
When I started in maintenance, I loved looking at the tool catalogs and, of course, imagined how nice it would be to have one of those gigantic tool sets. You know, the tool set with something for every job. Similar to most of the other new guys, I couldn’t afford to purchase that kind of tool
What is so important about culture?
In many of the articles and books that are published today, we see a great amount of improvements in different industries and companies using different methodologies and tools. Many times, it seems that if we use the same tools or methods, we should get the same results. This is not always the case.
Just how do you start a reliability program?
Where do I start? I have heard the question many times and there is no real “easy” answer other than “pick a spot”. What I mean is that normally when a company decides to start a reliability program, there are a lot of improvements to be made in other areas as well. I have never
How reliable is your training?
Ever since I started working, everywhere I worked had training. As we all know, training is the backbone of preparation to perform our assigned duties in any position we hold. I cannot think of a single job in the world that does not require some kind of training to at least improve performance of the
What is a reliability engineer?
After I decided to participate in writing a blog for Reliable Plant, I had to decide where to start. The decision was a tough one because of the varying levels of experience the readers possess. I thought that the beginning would be the best place to start and encourage participation. Defining what a
The bad news has arrived: Your plant is undergoing severe curtailment/closure
It’s happened … the announcement that a major portion of your facility is being closed for the foreseeable future. What do you do next? Accept the news that your plant is facing an impending plant shutdown. It is not necessarily a “knockout” for the plant or your career. Remember,