I have been a “Reliability Engineer” for a year now and still don’t really know how I could best use my time to improve reliability. I am currently the only "reliablity engineer" but we do have two other guys in our department that were former millwrights and electricians and they are among other things in charge of collecting vibration data and using the IR camera to predict trouble. Currently I assist maintenance managers with whatever I can, when I can, but I feel like I could be of more help doing something else. So what does your typical day involve? What things could I do to be more effective at my job? Any other tips or hints would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

LKTTU,
I know how you feel. Much of our work blurs the lines between Maintenance Engineer and Reliability Engineer, but I like it. Much of our work interfaces among management of maintenance practices, maintenance personnel and equipment users, and CMMS Data Integrity pusher for maintenance concerns. Our department works on the needs of the moment also. I don’t know how a one person department can make much headway in an organization, yet sadly, many companies try to install an “RCM Department” that way. Our group is fairly well versed in the CMMS system, database query tools, spreadsheet filtering and formulas for DB and Excel, so we work on issues and projects on that end.

We’ve developed a program to look at CMMS Problem Codes entered on work orders to identify problem trends in our systems. That seems to work well. Not everyone pays attention to them, but we can glean early failure trends from them; and it works. We also talk directly to manufacturer’s of our process equipment to discuss systemic problems and root cause issues we’ve identified. I really like this part. We have forced some redesigns and I’ve even negotiated warranty and out of warranty settlements with them. Things like this show tangible returns from our department. Management likes that.

Our most current department projects are PM Optimization, CMMS Equipment Module Data Integrity, and an Equipment Lay-up and Reactivation Project. PM Opt involves reviewing data from equipment CMs and PMs against decision criteria to extend current PM intervals. CCMS Equip Integrity involves making sure all parts designated by job plans are attached to the equipment, creating CMMS equipment numbers and locations according to a designated project plan. Equipment Lay-up involves creating plans to make sure process equipment is able to return to service reliably when needed. We find it very important to track improvements on spreadsheets and charts to show the value of these projects.

I don’t know that industry has well defined rolls for the Maintenance Engineering and Reliability Engineering functions. They seem to be used both generically and interchangeably.

Good luck.
J-

LKTTU,
1. Decide where you want to be in 5 years in respect of your uptime, maintenance costs and technical integrity.
2. Find out where you are currently on these measures.
3. Prepare a master plan of how to close the gap, set yearly targets.
4. Work out detailed actions for the current years plan.
5. Organize the processes, training, tools/gadgets you need to achieve the goals.
6. Get people 'on-board' to share your vision and goals.
7. Prepare an implementation plan, get resources and get going!

All this on top of your current activities!

Thanks to both of you for your input. Vee, I like the idea of setting goals and making plans, however I have no idea on how to go about doing this. I am a year out of school and still learing the industrial environment; so I don't really know what a reasonable goal would be for reliabilty. Any suggestions on setting these goals?

You could try talking to the plant operators and finding out what issues give them most grief.

Choose a couple of relatively low level, long time problems: make fixing these your goals. Start small and pick the easy ones first, since these give you most chance of success and improving credibility.

Work with the operators and get them involved, this will pay dividends in the long term.

I have been a Reliability Engineer since 1964 and I'm still struggling with your same problems. I agree with both of the post above, but you may want to read what Bob Nelms wrote last spring. It can be done from the bottom up and does not neccessarily require top management approvals in the early stages. It is located at:
http://www.failsafe-network.com/LCA%20Approach/Failsafe...ument%2004-28-07.pdf

Good Luck!

#1 issue - lubrication. Check PM's and scheduling and 'how' who takes care of it. Get that on track and you've accomplished a lot.

Good suggestions have already been made. Challenge craft's knowledge - evaluate training.

Search high failure items and do the root cause investigation to eliminate re-occuring items. Get on the distribution list of people who collect data or are involved in PdM technologies. Uses the cmms system to track high usage rate and OT.

I used to take a dailey tour upon entering the plant everyday on the way to my office and walk a route (changed by day) to see, hear, smell, whatever ......... a good practice.

I currently take at a minimum 2 tours through the plant each day. I do have access to a lot of delay information and I am working my way through it to find the "low hanging fruit". Our reliability / cmms program has been in effect for about 2 years now, so I am not starting from scratch. What I am dealing with is that my supervisor who started the program and had many years of service left without any warning, so I am trying to figure out what exactly he did (we didn't have a lot of day to day interaction).

Which CMMS software do you use? Do you have a means to extract pertainent data from it? We use Maximo and extract data with Brio. The two programs work well together. You can glean a lot of information by writing specific queries.

J-

We use MAINSAVER version 10.1 client with an SQL 2005 Database and both Crystal Reports and inhouse DotNet applications for customer feedback. All Faculty and Staff (Approx. 4000)can enter Work Orders and check the status via WEB.

We use Tabware and I can extract reasonably good data from it. Our delay data goes through a system called Noetix; which I can also get reasonably good data from it.

LKTTU,

Your confusion and frustration are very understandable and very common in most companies, sites and contracts I have had experience with. The basis for the position all starts at the HR level and managements expectations of the Reliability Engineer.
I believe the best move for a Reliability Engineer is to first have a functional process analysis, (i.e. what plant do you have, what are the design capacities, what are the production or operations expectations of the assets and are they inline with the assets capabilities, what are the available maintenance windows.) Next look at what maintenance strategies are in place and what is identified in the strategy analysis as needing to be done to meet the production requirements. Do they align.
Look at the asset current performance and is this meeting planned or expected requirements.
If not are the maintenance actions effective, PM optimisation may be needed here.
What is the content and quality of Work Instructions for the maintenance routines, are there checks and balances identified.
What are the Work Management KPI's showing?
Reliability is a very expansive discipline with so many facets to it. Once again it really depends on what the Roles and Responsibilities are for your position, do they cross the line with Asset or Maintenance Engineers.
I hope this is of some help

Regards

Jason

LKTTU,
I have been reliability engineer now for 5 yrs after 12yrs as maintenance & operation engineer. I enjoy reliability role better than other role. Most words of wisdom have already been given to you in form of replies from other guys. Few more items as food for thought

A) Keep on collecting data related to general engineering information like pipes, flanges, pumps, gearboxes, mech seals, bolts & torques, new NDT techniques, proc & cons of detection methods. 2-3 yrs down the lane, people shall start coming to you for information

B) Attack low hanging fruits- repeat small problems in consultation with operators to establish your credibility.

C) Document failures & start learning all the tools to carry out RCA

D) Capture opportunities to carry out minor plant modifications to improve OEE or reduce cost; justify them by cost benefit analysis. You may not do it but managemnt may provide you with resources or give it to someone else to explore & execute.

E)Take keen part during major outage activities, make sure to visit each & every piece of equipment specially failed ones. Your learning curve shall become very steep. Offer yourself for support activities to develop "Rappo" with the guys.

One thing I did here that got people coming to me for information was to start a collection of PDF equipment manuals. I sent out e-mails to engineering, operations and maintenance people asking them to send me what they have on their hard drives, CDs, turnover packages, etc. I also went out to manufacturer’s websites for equipment that I knew we have and downloaded all I could. Anytime anyone needed a manual I told them to let me know and I would do my best to get it for them.

I sent everyone links to the webpage we built. I have quite a collection of manuals now. I organized manuals by manufacturer, then equipment type, then specific equipment. Anyone from anywhere in the plant can log on to a networked computer and have access to manuals for most equipment in the plant. I sell it as a service to the users and they use it. Any time you can get the equipment manual into an operator or technicians hands you will have a more reliable system overall.

LTTKU,
You said,

quote:

Thanks to both of you for your input. Vee, I like the idea of setting goals and making plans, however I have no idea on how to go about doing this. I am a year out of school and still learing the industrial environment; so I don't really know what a reasonable goal would be for reliabilty. Any suggestions on setting these goals?

If you know yoyr present performance in respect of Uptime, and let us say the OEE is 55%, what would it mean to your Company to raise it to 65% on $$$ terms, That tells you how much efort you van put in to achieve that result. Whether that is feasible in a reasonable time frame say 5 years is something you have to determine (more on OEE in Bob Hanse's book Overall Equipment Effectiveness, ISBN 0-8311-3138-1, Ind. Press).
If you know your present performance on safety or enviromental performance set an improvememt plan in place.
If you know your maintenance cost performance and trends, set new targets.

The key is this: all three of the above are directly impacted by reliability. So the path to improving all of them is by improving reliability, reducing breakdowns, trips and emergency shutdowns. To improve reliability, there are some steps we can take, such as
1. Get the basics right; clean and dry equipment, proper lubrication, tight bolts, proper alignment and balancing. These steps alone account for over 50% of reliability problems.
2. Eliminate defects systematically using a structured and systematic RCA process.
3. Get operators and maintainers to work in teams. Machinery likes tender loving care.
4. Get 'clean' data into your CMMS. Use simple analytical tools e.g. Pareto, Bad Actor etc to focus on key areas.
5. Ensure that people have access to up-to-date drawings and docimentation.
6. Measure and report progress.

Remember that Reliability, like Safety, is a state of mind; what is between the ears of people is what matters. Most of what I have suggested above costs very little, brings a lot of quick returns, and you can see visible changes.

Once past this stage, you can consider using tools like RCM, RBI, IPF, FMECA etc. in the next stage. These are resources intensive and costly, but bring lasting benefits.

The second area of attention is Productivity; what matters here is good Planning, Scheduling and Work Preparation. In general, poor productivity is a result of poor management.

I hope I have given you enough to chew on. Good luck with your efforts.

Like Wally I have done some of the same. My site has PdM reports, engr files and newsletters & technical publications. I have gone throughout the plant and taken photos of the equipment and put them on the site along with dwgs and tech info available.

I like your photo idea. We have taken photos during maintenance and operation but haven't put them up for reference on our intranet website. It's handy to have photo references.

I appreciate this conversation as it very much relates to us as well. I am currently developing a small Reliability Engineering Group in our Paper Mill.

One topic I don't see discussed much here is FMEA study. Our primary consultant group is guiding us down this path to identify equipment risks not yet adequately addressed through PM, CBM, or PdM measures using what appears a standard FMEA process. I'd like to hear if this is being used elsewhere.

It seems like a lot of time investment per equipment but early results do seem to point out unaddressed problems and come up with reasonable efforts for prevention. Both operators and mechanics take part in these meetings so we do get a good cross-functional perspective.

We also do use a formal criticality assessment procedure to quantify the true risk of loss as a prioritization toll before deciding what to apply FMEA to.

Ron Pihl
Reliability Manager
LFPPI

I also wonder how many internally operating Reliability/Maintenance Engineering Groups have FMEAs and facilitate FMEAs as a normal part of their duties; internally operating being the key words in the sentence.

Many of us are doing cross functional work in our maintenance positions. It seems mostly that FMEAs are sold by consultants. I could use more training on FMEA facilitation to be sure. General industry doesn’t seem ready to fully support full blown FMEAs. Most go by internal experience and manufacturer recommendations, but base most maintenance decisions on an informal basis. The better ones improve their initial decisions over time.

I’m sure there must areas where formal FMEAs are used routinely and successfully. I would like to hear from internal Reliability/Maintenance Engineering staff about how their programs work, to reassure myself that this is a good course of action.

I recently was introduced to the term REM or Review of Existing Maintenance by Vee as a reverse engineered view of the maintenance package starting at the PM/job plans/spare parts and working back towards the equipment. I would like to learn more about the REM, as most of us are dealing with operating equipment with a history behind it that indicate real failure modes that have already occurred, and more insight of the operation of the equipment.

FMEAs rely upon the level of expertise of the facilitator and the craft expertise in the room at the time. With the human variability in mind, I wonder if FMEAs performed on the same subject matter, with the same operating context could ever return the same results.

I reserve judgment and hold out hope though.

Jeff

Something just occurred to me: Losing craft expertise to inexperience has been an active topic of discussion in this forum and the magazine. If craft expertise is lost to inexperience, the quality of the FMEAs performed will suffer also. General industry may need consultant facilitators and consultant craft experts to perform an FMEA some day. Now there’s a thought.