Dear All,

After studing reliability and maintenance and reading lots of articles about it, I would like to share with you and summarize these valuable learnings which we can ponder upon . . . .

LESSONS ON RELIABILITY

1) Focus must be on RELIABILITY & not cost, because if RELIABILITY starts to improve then COST will definitely go down, there will be times that focusing on reducing COST will tend to hurt RELIABILITY, it cannot be the other way around. Having a low cost maintenance is a consequence of good maintenance practice. Reducing cost had been a focus for most maintenance managers and that perhaps, we need to learn from the lessons of history. Cost must be studied thoroughly not just based from its initial cost but on the entire life cycle cost of the equipment . . .

2) Never ever accept failures in your plant. Trouble shooting is no longer an effective
strategy. In today's competitive world, the analysts finds real solutions to the problems.
When we get really good at doing things then something is wrong because we are doing it much
often, but when we expect a different result from the same tasks we are doing then this is
simple not possible, the Chinese called this INSANITY . . . . .

3) The best time to address a problem is when it is small. It is very hard to advance to any
form of specialized maintenance activities and improvement efforts if equipment's Basic
Condition had not been well established. Always remember our equipment is a shared respon-
sibility for both operators & maintenance people, a lesson we must all learn from the
Japanese.

4) In a REACTIVE ENVIRONMENT, we always complain that we lack manpower resources to address failures, but once equipment starts to improve we always wonder where they have been in the first place. In reality maintenance is not outnumbered, they are just too busy working with breakdowns. Maintenance is not measured by how fast we repair but on how we are able to
eliminate the failure itself.

5) Every failure has a specific set of consequences, being PROACTIVE has something to do about reducing or eliminating the consequences of failure to a minimum rather that completely eliminating the failure itself. The best maintenance strategy to adopt will always have to be based upon the consequences of the failure itself.

6) A question on why industry remain reactive may lead to a thousand reasons or more & those who fear that improving reliability may lead to elimination of jobs are right only to the point
where they resist change. Increasing reliability is not achieved by cutting manpower nor are they contrasting goals. Increasing reliability means slowly getting out of the repair business so that new doors will open to maintenance function

7) The real mission of the maintenance department is to provide reliable physical assets & excellent support for its customers by reducing and eliminating the need for
maintenance. Do not confuse maintenance as synonymous to repair, these 2 are entirely different.The distinction between a true blooded maintenance & a mechanic is a maintenance uses more of his brain than his hand while a mechanic uses his hand much of the time. Let us treat our people as maintenance & not as mere mechanics

8) There is no silver bullet program or strategy that can transform a plants reliability
overnight all will start with its basic foundation and that is by "EDUCATION" and this is the most most powerful weapon to change the mindset of our people. Reliability is not a
program with an end but a culture without an end, its the same as any continuous improvement
philosophy . . . .

9) Always remember that in any Reliability Improvement Initiative, the focus must be on the
people provide them with the skills they need & these skills will be used to improve their
equipment. People will improve their machines and it is not the other way around.

Perhaps others may have more to add on the list on lessons on Reliability

Wishing you and your family the best this holiday season . . . . .

Rolly Angeles

Rolly:

I agree with most of this but the one thing I cannot agree on is No. 2. Run To Failure (RTF) is a viable option if cost effective or there is no feasible task that can be accomplished. In addition, not everything can be or should be redesigned to eliminate all failures because it is not feasible in most cases.

Focus on reliability and not on cost. This is easier said than done. How would we convince CEO to agree to this statement?

Josh,

If we they can understand the meaning of Life Cycle Management then they will know what I am talking about. Buying cheap parts does not entirely improve reliability, and understanding that the cost of failure does not only constitute the initial cost of the part, since this is only the tip of the iceberg there are so many hidden cost beneath the iceberg far far outweighs the cost of the part itself

Any practical ways (hopefully tried & tested) on how to convince & convert the MBA-educated CEO to embrace reliability, LCC, Weibull, RCM, TPM etc rather than focusing on cost & budget compliance? Eg who will ask the CEO to attend one of the reliability courses?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

CEOs are not going to attend a reliability course, so you're going to have to develop a 5-10 talk about the problems you can solve for the CEO.

the reliability goals must fit within the goals of the company. if the company goal is to be a low-cost producer, then reliability must find a method of helping it decrease costs. This can be by increasing capacity without capital expansion, therefore less downtime both unplanned and planned.

if quality is the emphasis, reliability must address that issue.

Most MBAs have had exposure to statistics. If you can develop projections that show the impact of reliability or unreliability based on failures the CEO and financial people should at least be interested.

IN my opinion, you get about 10 minutes and maybe not this much, so your message must be pointed and succinct.

quote:

Most MBAs have had exposure to statistics. If you can develop projections that show the impact of reliability or unreliability based on failures the CEO and financial people should at least be interested.

True exposed, and maybe used daily at their first or two positions before climbing the management ladder up to CEO trone. But after getting to Mt. Olympus the graphs must be very easy to understand since statistical analysis is not longer a tool the CEO can manage.

Hello Josh,

CEO's Top Management and executive will not go to 3 day training or seminars, I agree with the post the you need to make a management presentation I say that they willlisten to you for about 30 min if your topic is of national interest. What is important is to have the figures in cost, how much investment if any and what will be the return on investment. My advise is before you make any presentation to them make a feasibility or project study. I think they will listen to you and moreover have your project and thing in mind approved.

Example you want to present on how you can reduce lubrication in your plant. Try to have this data for your presentation :

1) Cost of all your lubricant for the past 3 to 5 yrs (Graphical Form )
2) Cost of spare parts that fail due to lubricaiton such as bearings, seals, pump failures, etc.(Graphical Form)
3) Your plans to reduce these costs outline and
bulletized
4) Case studies on those that have implemented this and their results
5) Investments you need perhaps such as oil analysis lab & high performance Filtration
6) Return on Investment on these instruments
7) Benefits and advantages of this project

And once reliability starts to improve then submit with them a monthly report showing the progress of your project.

Rolly that sounds very good, just ensure to summarize well the data at the graphs/ charts; too many data in the same page will confuse the CEO.

Also, try to know the person. In my case, a presentation with lot of blue in it will appeal best to the Operations Director than another with red colors. Some will call it phycological baloney, but it works.

Dear All,

You may find the information on this blog to be of some use in terms of lessons learned in reliability / asset management.

http://physical-assets.blogspot.com/

As a side issue, I am on leave nu until the new year, so I wish you all the very best for the season and a prosperous and happy new year.