FMEA, and RCA, Got You Overwhelmed, and Paralyzed?

I get it, Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) are hard or at the very least hard to execute consistently. If you look at the amount of them that you need to do or should do, it can be quite overwhelming. Many sites get paralyzed by this and do very little or nothing with these very important tools. Just like many of the other elements we talk about that are needed for reliability improvement, it is critical to create a plan and set an expectation. It must be broken in into manageable bite size pieces. 

For sites that are just beginning to complete RCAs and FMEAs I often suggest the following goal: What if each reliability engineer or maintenance engineer committed to one FMEA and 2 RCAs per month? Would this be doable in your organization? The expectation is that these would be good quality FMEAs of 200 lines or more and RCAs that are more than 5 whys or fish bones. They all need to be taken through implementation and follow up even if that portion occurs after the month they are scheduled in. I would suggest that FMEA be selected based on "leveragability." What I mean by that is, select your target assets not just based on criticality or failure rate but also based on how many assets that you can apply the FMEA against while developing equipment maintenance plans and systemic improvements. Think of it as, what assets can I get the most bang for the buck?

If your site were to adopt this goal and execute on it then by the end of the year you would have 12 FMEAs implemented and 24 problems addressed with RCA for each reliability or maintenance engineer.  Imagine the change in performance you would experience with this volume of issues leaving the system. 

I get it, these tools can be overwhelming, but if you set a goal and hold each other accountable then your organization can be substantially better than most of your competition within the first year. 

The Victimization of Maintenance

How many of you have heard or said the following:

• "I could be more reliable if I had operation's support."
• "We would suffer less downtime if I had more people."
• "If corporate would give us a CMMS (eAM) that worked I could reduce my maintenance cost."
• "If my equipment weren't so old, I could compete with the other plants."
• "I would plan the work but my eAM makes it too hard to plan and schedule." 
• "If I could find maintenance technicians in our area I could improve compliance."
• "We would have less emergency failures if my manager would approve the money for predictive tools."
• I would improve my preventive maintenance if I had the time. 

I could go on but you get the gist, in maintenance just like many other disciplines it can be very easy to play the "victim card." When this happens, you have given yourself and your organization permission not to act. This really becomes an excuse to fail or at the very least stay stagnant. I hear many of these quotes regularly from sites all over the globe, heck, I have even said them a few times when caught in a moment of frustration. Today I want to give one quick example of a potential way to get past victimization and make progress and challenge you to look for your workarounds for your problems. I'm not discounting that sites have things that are holding them back in some way, but more often than not with a bit of focus and perseverance there is likely a work around that can allow for improvement.
One common complaint is around eAM or CMMS functionality issues in the area of job planning.  Sites say they can not create effective job plans and store them in the CMMS for execution. This takes on many different flavors from formatting issues and graphics issues to difficulty in using the task with other jobs in the future. In many cases though, when I look at what has been done, I can only find a few attempts where jobs have been effectively planned.
Just as one oversimplified example to get you thinking, one work around is a job plan library outside of the CMMS or eAM with links where possible. I know this sounds a bit counter common thought but 400 job plans in a library outside of the CMMS is a lot better than only two job plans in the CMMS.  These can be job plans that are created in Word and saved within a file structure by asset class on a server or on a file sharing site like SharePoint. This gives you a real job plan library with no formatting restrictions that you can link to the work orders or if that is a problem for you then they can be printed and attached to the physical work orders for delivery to the technician. This also gives you job plans that your planners can cut and paste task from to create more job plans further building out the library.
Please do not be paralyzed by waiting on perfection. Throw down that victim card. Sometimes you just need to just find a way that meets the over arching goal with in the restrictions that we have.

Is The MTTR Metric Killing Your Reliability?

Metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are a force for good when they are used at the right time and with the right complementary or supporting elements. But, when they are used at the wrong point in a facilities maturity they can have unintentional consequences, or even worse they can drive the wrong behaviors.
An example that I continue to see causing more issues than it is solving, is the use of the KPI known as Mean Time To Repair (MTTR). When this metric is used alone, in immature organizations, or without an understanding of the unintentional consequences it can drive your organization in the opposite direction of world class performance. If your organization is immature from a reliability cultural standpoint and you choose MTTR as your focus then you set yourself up to become very reactive by being very quick to respond to failures. The facts are:

• Reactive response is at least 5 times more expensive than planned and scheduled work . 
• Operations will beat on you to get faster and faster at responding so that you lower MTTR. 
• Rushed repairs are less reliable.
• Reactive response requires more expensive spare parts stock.
• Repetitive failures and repairs increase the chances of the introduction of infant mortality failures. 
• You will find yourself with high skilled maintenance technicians just standing on the manufacturing floor doing nothing while waiting on a failure to occur. 
• Pressure to make the repair as quickly as possible can lead to taking elevated safety risks either intentional or unintentional. 

Many of the sites that choose MTTR as a primary metric early in their reliability journey create a brigade of firefighters on the ready with crash carts and mounds of spare parts. What we really want is to prevent the failures from happening to start with or at least reduce the frequency. For that we might use other metrics like Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) early on and then deploy MTTR, after we increase the reliability of our systems. This later use of MTTR will allow us to address the issues we can't prevent and to understand any training gaps and other issues that might be affecting repair times.
Picture it this way: If MTTR is all you have then your organization will create tools like crash carts and quick response teams instead of using tools like Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to understand and eliminate the reoccurring problem. From the real world, I have seen bearing quick change carts developed to speed up re-occurring failures repairs where it they had just tensioned the belts properly the failures would have been eliminated.  Five really fast 2 hour bearing replacements is still much worse that bearings that don't need repairs at all. This site needed to understand better not respond quicker.
Are your metrics driving the wrong behaviors? Are you using them at the right time?
Tell us what metrics have not worked for you and why in the comments below. 

Reliability Begins with Effective Job Plans: A guest post from Coach Allen Canaday

Are you still using a job plan that doesn’t contain performance standards for proper work execution?  You know, performance standards, the technical information the job plan conveys to the technicians performing the task. This is the specific knowledge required in order to ensure the step is completed without introducing an error or failure.  I’m talking about such “trivial” information as torque specifications, belt tension, alignment tolerances and pressure settings to name a few.  Oh, you don’t need it?  You have a very experienced and talented work force who is overflowing with tribal knowledge? Why spend the time and money to research the correct performance standards?  After all, I don’t want to insult my technicians by implying their knowledge and skills are no longer adequate.  We’ve done it this way for years.
OK, so you don’t have performance standards in your job plans and don’t really see the value of taking the time to research and document them in the job plans.  Your current technicians understand what is required when they read statements such as “replace as necessary”, “adjust as needed” or “inspect for normal wear”.  You’re in great shape as long as most of them remain healthy, content, well-paid or never retire.  Have you considered these possibilities?  Oh, don’t forget about the new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility opening across town next year.  A new facility, modern equipment in an ultra-clean environment with salary ranges far beyond anything your facility can counter-offer.  Are you still confident with your tribal knowledge database?
The status quo will change, bet on it!  “Build it and they will come” was the famous quote from Field of Dreams.  There is tremendous competition in today’s marketplace for skilled technicians.  When the new facilities are built, and they will be, they will recruit the best of the best.  Some of those best will be yours!  The color of loyalty today is “green”.  If you are unable to compete in the salary and benefit arena, you will lose tribal knowledge!  How will you prepare for the “loss of knowledge” while there is still time?  In many cases this loss of tribal knowledge can be compared to your CMMS crashing and there is no back-up data. 
Invest in your job plan library without delay!  Why?  Because it’s the right thing to do.  Accurate job plans not only help capture tribal knowledge, but will force you to research many facets of your asset base that haven’t been explored.  The development of good job plans require research utilizing OEM documents and the inclusion of tried and true methods your technicians have developed over the years.  Other benefits of updating job plans include time estimate accuracy for each step of the plan, proper sequencing of the tasks, updating warnings and cautions as safety procedures may have changed and a review of the BOM’s. 
Your workforce’s skills and experience are dynamic.  As experienced employees leave they are generally replaced with less experienced employees, certainly less experienced in your facility.  Keep this fact in mind as job plans are reviewed and developed, the job plans have to be written to the level of understanding, training and skills of your workforce.  As the number of more senior employees leave the company the level of detail in the job plans may certainly have to increase to ensure continued or even improved performance can be attained.  Are you sure you can’t make a plan to update your job plans?

Reliability Confessions of the Not Quite Best Practice

You have secrets. Secrets that have robbed the reliability from your facility and its assets. Sometimes it just makes you feel better if you confess your secrets publicly. Maybe you should let a few of your secrets go today, and bask in the relief that follows. Today, you have that chance using the anonymous post feature in the comments section below.  But first let me share a few secrets I know already:
1. "I use what ever grease is in the nearest grease gun I find. (grease is grease)"
2. "I sometimes overload the machine and cause it to fail because when it does I can take a break while maintenance fixes it."
3. "I never torque the bolts with a torque wrench. (Tight is tight, right?)"
4. "I once wrapped a fuse in aluminum foil because it would not stop blowing."
5. "I never put all the bolts back if the equipment doesn't need them. (I'm eliminating wasted time)"
6. "I don't wipe off the grease fitting before I lubricate."
7."I sometimes don't share all the critical steps for a job plan so that I can save the day when it does not work."
8. "I have put a 20 amp fuse in a 10 amp slot."
9. "One time I dropped a bolt into a gearbox during a PM and it is still there today."
10. "I added flammable hydraulic fluid to a system requiring nonflammable to save a trip back to the store room."
At least some of these little secrets happen regularly in plants everywhere. I challenge you to reread the list and this time think about what underlying systemic causes might have led for the perceived need for the individual to take these steps and then make them their secrets. Remember what Edward Deming said: "Blame the system not the people." Fixing the system eliminates many more problems within your site than blaming an individual. 
Don't forget to add a few secrets of your own at the bottom.

Stop Corrective Maintenance Repairs on Preventive Maintenance Work Orders.

Today's guest post by Blended Learning student Rick Clonan of Nissan is a sample of a communication to his organization to explain a problem that they had been facing. Interestingly enough it is a problem that many of us face in our sites. Thanks to Rick's willingness to share, you might be able to craft a similar example and share with your organization. 

There has been a lot of discussion as to why we are asking technicians to write corrective work orders for problems found on a PM instead of fixing the issue on the spot.  If we consider the example of the four machines below, it becomes clear why this is the case. 

        A technician is assigned a 2 hour PM for each of the machines below.  As he checks #1, there are no issues found and the PM is completed with no corrective work order generated.   As the inspection of #2 begins, he notices an issue.  This issue is not very critical and could wait until next  weekend.  He decides to fix it anyway.  The repair takes another 2 hours.  He moves on to machine #3.  There are no issues that demand immediate attention.  Since the PM of #2 and the corrective work order to fix the issue have taken a total of 4 hours, it is now time to go home, and the PM for  machine #4 does not get done. 

         The problem is, machine #4 has a failure in it that will shut the machine down in a day if not detected.  The next shift coming in has it’s own list of things to do and will not get to the PM on machine #4 that the previous shift did not complete.

    What we are trying to accomplish is to get as many failures detected as early on in the failure curve as possible.  It is understood that some repairs need to happen as soon as the fault is detected.   Most of the time this is not the case.  With the chance to plan for a repair, all of the parts can be ordered and the job will take less time.  We need to adapt to more of an inspection mindset when doing a PM and provide a clearly written corrective work order when a failure is detected.   This is not the way things have been done in the past.  We cannot continue to do things the same way and expect better results.  We must change the way we operate in order to improve. 




Great example! We hope this helps you with a topic to share or can be a model for a similar communication to your group as you chase after reliability.

Thankful Thinking: 7 List of Thanks

As we start the Thanksgiving week I could not help but think about the softer side of reliability. We focus so much on the technical issues and tools that drive reliability so let us focus on the people again. So many of the task that ensure reliability and profitability are thankless and often overlooked. This week I would challenge each of you to make a list of seven people that make your reliability possible. Once you identify your seven think about what would make their day better. It may be a few kind words, a pat on the back, a note left on their desk, or the purchase of a cup of coffee at break. Make sure they know how they help through out the year and specifically why you are thankful. The why is crucial because a general thank you just does not carry as much power. 
As I think back to my days at ExxonMobil I remember a maintenance technicians who took the time to teach others, and an operator that was interested in learning the equipment and the best setup techniques, and a parts clerk who really demonstrated pride in keeping the parts defect free. Don't forget the others like the janitorial staff that make it a pleasant environment to work in and the security team that helps get your contractors through the gate each day.
We at Eruditio would like to thank all of the people that have been a part of our first two years. You all have made it awesome and we are indebted to you for your trust and support.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

Does reliability have to cost a fortune? Guest Post By Chris Wozniak

Business to business, industry to industry, a great deal of effort (and money) is spent on trying to find the “silver bullet” or “next best thing” when it comes to reliability.  The goal is to produce game-changing results in record time . . . or at least a time faster than your closest competitor.  I submit that there are two components to success: 1) the content (money) piece; and, 2) the people (priceless) piece.
    Most businesses find a way to fund the content piece.  In fact, that’s probably the most readily addressed portion of a reliability program.  Funding predictive technologies, computerized maintenance management systems, training solutions, and subject-matter experts/consultants - these decisions come easier than most, since we have the ability to determine (or, at least, estimate) the return on investment.  But . . . even if you or your business “knows” the right answer, folks still need to execute the strategy.  Over the next few posts, my goal is to present a few key characteristics to unlocking the potential of your personnel – at minimal cost.
    I ask you this question (to start): what do you expect of your supervisors?  Drilling down, do you expect them to be at every meeting, and rapidly answer every email, or do you expect them to be actively interacting on the shop floor?  If you do expect them to spend the majority of their time outside of the cubicle, what does that interaction look like?  Are they deeply involved in maintenance actions, or rabidly chasing down urgently needed parts?  If you expect them to be office-centric, how do they maintain a finger on the pulse of the shop floor?  Are those communication paths formalized and reliable?
    Taking an introspective look at how our front line supervisors spend their time is an important first step.  And the best part is . . . it costs nothing.  We’re taking a look at processes already in place – good, bad, or indifferent.  Depending on our findings, though, what should our supervisors be doing?  Every business has its own challenges . . . but the presumption is that our supervisors (regardless of industry) earned their positions based on certain elements of technical prowess, experience, and people skills.  Our expectation should be that they bring these talents to bear on the shop floor by mentoring and overseeing . . . not by becoming distracted with administration or allowing themselves to become deeply and personally involved in any distinct maintenance action.  As standards and expectations are set at the strategic level, we need to recognize that we get what we inspect, not what we expect, at the tactical level.  Whatever it takes, we need to ensure they maintain the overarching, birds-eye view of their respective work centers.  If they are getting sucked into maintenance actions, we have to figure out why.  Are their crafts trained well enough to function independently? Is the mentorship/apprenticeship learning progression functioning correctly? Are job plans sufficiently developed and detailed appropriately?    
    Bad things happen when “parental supervision” is lost.  When supervisors leave their (sometimes) uncomfortable position of being the man-in-charge to become the most experienced craftsman on the job, a dangerous void of leadership forms.  The big picture can be lost; thereby jeopardizing personnel and equipment safety, and opening the door for additional maintenance-induced defects.  Understanding the demands on our supervisors, and enabling them to maintain the higher level perspective, doesn’t require a massive capital investment . . . in fact, it costs nearly nothing.  But it does require a change in expectation, and a threshold for pain as we may have to operate outside of normal comfort zones.    
Chris
C.D. Wozniak
Cell: (330) 685-5796
Email: cdwozniak@me.com

Software Got You Stuck? Do Not Let RCA Applications Hold Up Your Root Cause Efforts

Let us be clear, root cause analysis is a way of thinking not a software application yet their are sites that are spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours learning software instead of solving problems. Software is not inherently bad but you don't need a sports car to learn to drive.
If you are getting started with your RCA efforts and software is part of your plan then be aware of these potential problems:
Software can limit team involvement: Facilitator is head down in the computer rather than up truly facilitating responses from the team.
Software can slow the flow of ideas especially if it is slow to create or move causes and links: time required to create or edit means other are waiting and forgetting points and causes.
Software can complicate reporting: The simplest and most effective reporting for most sites is the A3 style RCA report which will be the topic of the next blog post.
Computers create barriers between facilitators and the RCA team. If you have to collect the information directly to the software then you should consider a facilitator and a recorder or scribe.
If you can problem solve without the software or by capturing the information after the analysis then here are a few tips and benefits of a software free RCA.
Use sticky notes and a big blank wall or a white board. (3M's Super Sticky PostIt Notes work well)
This allows good group involvement by allowing them to write and share or verbally share and you capture the causes.This gives you two streams of causes in two different communication styles. If two people share the same or similar cause than you stack them and both participants know they were heard. This can be key to good facilitation.
With sticky notes you can start by understanding the sequence of events and include any time stamped data from PLCs, cameras etc. and then once you identify key event, or forcing functions as they are sometimes known, you can transition to fault and logic tree with ease. This will provide a better understanding of the systemic and latent causes of the key event.
With the very hands nature of the sticky method you can move and reorganize causal chains quickly and as you discover new causes they can be added with ease and with out huge disruptions to the flow of ideas. When you are done you simply take a quick picture of the analysis via the ubiquitous cell phone and paste this into your chosen report format.  These can then be shared with others electronically.
The point of today's post is not that software is bad. It is simply that it is not required to get started and make substantial improvements in your facility. Many of our student save hundreds of thousands of dollars for their sites using nothing more than the sticky notes and a sound root cause methodology. Once root cause becomes part of your business culture then you can capture, catalog, and share more effectively with the help of software but don't let it hold you back from the start.

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 Boring is Not Better!

You can laugh about Reliability!

Click here to learn more about this on demand training offering on the Eruditio website and see the full demo

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Understanding Asset Related Risk: a three part series

In this weeks post Darrin Wikoff shares the first of of a series on criticality.
Although most asset management processes are based on managing risk, many organizations fail to fully understand the meaning behind an “asset criticality” ranking.  Most asset management professionals will tell you that the “critical” assets have the greatest impact on the plant’s mission, be it production rate, quality of product produced, or cost per product produced.  Acting under this mindset alone, most professionals overlook the single most important characteristic that makes each asset “critical” in the first place.  Through proper construction of criticality analysis models, you will be able to illustrate what management plan enhancements must be made in order to effectively control or mitigated asset-related risks.
WHAT’S IN THE NUMBER?
The first step in setting up a criticality analysis model is to define those characteristics that will be used to analyze each asset.  These characteristics should cover a wide range of business attributes, such as:
•    Customer impact – how do non-conformances impact your customer?
•    Safety and environmental impact – What’s the potential for a regulatory non-compliance?
•    Ability to isolate single-point-failures – Do you have a workaround in place in the event of failure?
•    Preventive Maintenance (PM) history – How much is your organization spending trying to control known risks today?
•    Corrective Maintenance (CM) history – How much have you spent recovering from non-conformances?
•    Mean-Time-Between-Failures (MTBF) – How often does a non-conformance occur?
•    Probability of failure – How likely is it to occur again in the future?
•    Spares lead time – When spares are needed, are they easy to obtain?
•    Asset replacement value – What will you spend to replace the asset if the risk can’t be managed?
•    Planned utilization rate – Is this asset something you really need?
Each characteristic should then be weighted to identify significance – what’s most important to the business within the Asset Management Strategy.  The greater the scale the easier it will be to accurately identify “critical” assets, however, the total score possible should not exceed 100, at a minimum.  By setting a limit of 100, you are re-enforcing the “weight” of each characteristic.
Next week we will look at "What can be learned from the Number?"

Precision Maintenance: Belts, Chains, and Sprockets

Today's post by Brandon Weil will add the element of precision to your program.

Belts, chains, and sprockets, chances are you have at least one if not all of these in your facility, and chances are you’re relying heavily on experience and judgment instead of quantitative inspection criteria. All too often the importance of proper inspection techniques and defined replacement criteria for these critical parts are overlooked. Don’t believe me? Just pull up some of your PM inspection procedure, discuss the topic at a tool box meeting, or observe someone performing the inspection, you might be surprised at the range of answers and opinions. If there isn’t a specific measurement or min/max criteria then you’re leaving the inspection up to chance. Another thing to consider is if these parts aren’t being installed properly in the first place you will undoubtedly see premature failures and reduced operational life, inspection criteria applies to installation practice requirements as well.
The good news is that you can start improving the quality of these inspections; all you need are a few basic low-cost tools Click Here and you will find a document with inspection criteria for these three parts to get you started. Improving your PM inspection procedure, putting the right tools in the right hands, and setting quantitative standards for your inspection is a very low-cost high-return activity that can start paying dividends today.

Precision Maintenance: The Torque Wrench

The automotive industry has had a bout with torque related issues recently. This has included over and under torqued items that have lead to failures and even deaths. We see torque related issues constantly in manufacturing facility root cause analysis. Bearing with reduced clearances and life due to over tightening of the housings and loose components due to improper bolt type and complete disregard for torque specifications are just a couple of recent examples.  Part of the solution is proper use of a torque wrench. A torque wrench is a precision instrument designed to apply a specific amount of force to a fastener. Whether tightening head bolts on a small block V-8 engine, lugs for tire and wheel installation or inspecting fastener tolerances on high-performance equipment, it is extremely important that proper care is used.
Guidelines are typically provided noting acceptable torque ranges, the order in which specific fasteners are tightened and the number of times a fastener must be tightened and loosened to ensure uniform torque application. You must also be mindful of the presence of thread lubricants and the age of the bolt or fastener being used as these affect the torque required. Failure to properly torque fasteners can lead to equipment damage, personal injury or worse.To help you prevent torque problems in your facility I have collected a few tips for your use. There is also a video here for you visual learners.

It is important to follow acceptable safety, maintenance, and use practices, such as:
1. Always follow the manufacturer’s directions regarding torque direction, proper force, torque
pattern/sequence, use or non-use of lubrication on fasteners and torque “tighten/release” cycles.
2. Do not exceed the recommended working range of the torque wrench. Reliable measurements are
based on a percentage of the working range. In general, most mechanical wrenches have a useable
range from 20% to 100% of full scale. Most electronic wrenches have a useable range from 10% to
100% of full scale.
3. Do not use handle extensions or torque multipliers/cheater bars as we called them unless specifically allowed by the torque wrench
manufacturer.
4. If you have a torque wrench calibration/ verification stand test the wrench prior to each use.
5. Always inspect the tool and check for worn or cracked sockets. Properly lubricate and replace
worn parts.
6. Avoid dropping or sliding a torque wrench. Dropping a torque wrench on a hard surface can cause
the instrument to lose reliable calibration. If you suspect that a wrench has been dropped, have the
tool inspected by the manufacturer or reputable calibration service.
7. Always store a torque wrench in a protective case and/or location when not in use.
8. Avoid exposure to temperature extremes, high humidity, fluid immersion and corrosive environments. That means do not put them in the parts washer...
9. If using a click-type torque wrench, always store it at the lowest level on the scale.
10. Avoid marking, etching or placing labels on torque wrenches.
11. Use a torque wrench to apply a specific torque value during the final assembly process. Do not use a torque wrench as the primary means of tightening or loosening fasteners.
12. As most torque wrenches are length specific, always grasp the torque wrench in the center of the
handle. If two hands need to be used, place one hand on top of the other.
13. Apply torque in a slow, methodical manner and avoid sudden, “jerking” movements.
14. When the wrench signals (by clicking, beeping or lights) that a specific torque has been reached,
stop pulling immediately.
15. After 5000 cycles or up to one year of use, whichever comes first, have your torque wrench
inspected and re-calibrated by the manufacturer or reputable calibration service.

Precision maintenance is key to eliminating your infant mortality and reoccurring failures. A systematic torque application program can get you on your way.

Four -isms That Might Be Killing Your Reliability

Lets talk today about the four -isms that may be running around in your plant and limiting your ability to improve up-time, quality and reliability.  The first step is to recognize that they exist and then we can determine a plan to mitigate or eliminate it. Below I have given you the four as well as a sound bite and possible mitigation strategies. It is best if you can prevent them from rearing their ugly heads through good risk and communication planning but today we will look at a reactive response.

Negativism: The disposition to project the worst case scenario.
Sounds like: "This CMMS is horrible it takes 16 screen to do what I could do in one in the old system."
Mitigation: Focus on the positive and don't let meeting become bashing sessions. Celebrate the little successes or steps from your project plans.

Criticism: The disposition to be preoccupied with incomplete or imperfect.
Sounds like: "This new process is not good enough to roll out. Let's continue to work on it."
Mitigation: Create a pilot area where it is OK to fail and trial the processes there with a mind for continuous improvement. These safe zones clear the way and the fear of failure and allow for progress not paralysis.

Skepticism: The disposition to always question but never commit.
Sounds like: "I'm not sure we have enough data to show that this will work. Let's collect more.or That will never work here. We are too different. "
Mitigation: Show case studies from similar sites that have succeeded. We call them "real world examples" in our training. Visit sites or invite sites to visit you once they have had success. Let you negative folks mix with their positive ones.

Cynicism: The disposition to view every human enterprise as selfishly motivated.
Sounds like: "Maintenance just wants us to do autonomous maintenance so we can do their work for them"
Mitigation: Communicate fully the intent of the initiative and how it affects each individual. Cynicism loves to attack the ill informed.

What are you doing in your site to address the -isms?

Are the Squirrels Getting In the Way of Reliability in Your Facility? The Movie Series

No today's post is not about fuzzy little animals chewing through your control wiring or completing the circuit to ground in your switch gear although many may have noted these as root causes for reliability issues in the past. Today is about an even a bigger root cause of under-performance in manufacturing today. Squirrel! or as I am calling it corporate distraction. Dug and the rest of the dogs in in the Disney Pixar movie Up suffered from this problem. Lets take a look at a promo clip if you haven't already.

Dug and his compadres, they have trouble staying focused on the task at hand and we can hear that because of the verbalizer around their necks. You see the verbalizer allows us to hear their thoughts. What if you could hear all the thoughts flying around your facility. What distractions might we hear? Is the organization focused on a goal or does it seem to chase after every squirrel that comes along.
Manager that are just making a quick stop as they climb the ladder can be especially affected with corporate distraction. When they hear of an initiative that someone in the organization fancies then they want to do it to impress that person. Just as they get started they find out about another one and in their haste to be promoted they go after that one as well. In a nut shell they over commit and under deliver. I have seen this over and over. It becomes a lot like chasing squirrels, on the way to one you see another one that you just have to go after.
I have also seen managers who live for real bottom line results and long term plant performance. They do not let the squirrels get them off track. They take the time to have a leadership planning session regularly where they look at all of the initiatives that are here or on the horizon for the plant as a whole. They look at the value and return for each and how multiple initiatives might fit together to enable the organization to get to the current vision and the goals that have been set. Sometimes they need to change the goals and adjust the mission to match changing business needs that have arisen but when this happens it is communicated well to the organization. Either way they look at the resources that exist for the plant and the funds available to support improvement initiatives prior to committing the plant to them. The next thing they do is start a high level plant master plan that shows not just what, but how and when they are going to execute the initiatives chosen for the site. They also have gates or systems in place to prevent the new squirrels from distracted them from their current focus as they begin execution.
What do you do in your site to keep the squirrels at bay and the focus on results in the forefront?

Facts and Statistics on Growth, Skills, Reliability, and Manufacturing

Today's blog post includes many facts and statistics that I have collected while preparing to present at the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufactures Reliability Conference this week. This is the group formally known as NPRA and if you are going to be their look me up. These tidbits are from various recent magazine articles and studies and will help you communicate the need for both education and retention of talent in your facility.

According the Group Outlook Survey and and an article in Plant Engineering mid size manufactures are seeing the following:

• 68% of respondents expect revenue to increase in 2013
• 87% of companies expect capital expenditures to grow or remain constant and 39% expect to spend more than 2012
• 43% plan to hire more employees in 2013 versus 24% in 2010 with 52% maintaining current employment levels this is up from the last few year
• 68% expect increased sales in 2013 over strong sales in 2012
• 61% are attributing this to new products for 2013
•  70% have increased material and services purchases from American suppliers with Mexico following second as an effect of near-shoring 

What does all this mean? Manufacturing is growing. They are hiring. They are buying new equipment. They are buying more raw materials here in the US. That effects most of us.
Questions: Are they building reliability into the new assets? Are these new hires ready to operate and maintain equipment at a level that can facilitate the increased output that is required? With this growth in the market and the 401k investment value now returning to per-recession levels will we see baby-boomers retire in mass?

According to a 2011 ARC Advisory Group report:

• The average impact of unplanned downtime in process industries is $20 billion or 5% of production
• With every 10 workers retiring only 5 will take their place

 What does this tell us? We will continue to have to do the same or more with less people so automation will grow and efficiency through skills and application will be more important.
Questions: Do we have the skills? Are we spending on training to create the skills to operate, maintain and troubleshoot automation and increasing equipment complexity?

According to Fractional Research Inc. a company that does distillation research for chemical and engineering companies:

• An estimated 10,000 workers a day are leaving the work force for the next 20 years
• That's 400,000 years of experience leaving each day

What does this tell us? We can't wait. The time is now. We have to collect the historical knowledge via our Maintenance Planners through the job plan library, Reliability Engineers through FMEAs and through our Process Engineers by incorporating existing knowledge into our automation system logic.
Questions: Are you collecting experience?

According to a 2012 report by the Construction Labor Market Analyzer (CLMA):

• Demand in the south eastern U.S. for skilled workers is expected to average 2.3 million during the 2012 to 2017 time period
• That is 3.4 million skilled crafts needed in North and South Carolina alone through January 2016
• Prior to 2008 it was estimated that 20 percent of current work force would retire. This was slowed by the recession but now it is happening during the recovery further hampering supply of skilled trades when we need them most.

These skilled trade represent a drain of trades from manufacturing and capital improvement and shows a systemic issue with the trades in general.
Questions? What are you doing to retain and up-skill your trades?  Will you have what you need to meet the sales growth and increased volume we mentioned above?

Chemical Processing's Annual Salary Survey of Engineers shared the following tidbits:

• The average raise is 4.27% which is up from 4.15% last year
• Bonuses also increased from $6,318 to $6,483 this year
• 39% mentioned lack of recognition as the main driver for job discontent.
• 68% mentioned challenge and stimulation of the job as one of their top satisfaction drivers
• 58% mentioned Salary and Benefits as one of their top satisfaction drivers

ChemicalProcessing.com recently ask their readers "How will the retirement of 'baby boomers' affect your site over the next 5 years?"

• 46% of respondents expect a significant impact and 37% expect to be effected somewhat. 

What does this mean to us?
With companies offering a 10% increase in compensation over the current level as a new hire, engineers are entertaining offers of employment elsewhere. Others are retiring. You could be loosing talent and experience.
Questions:
What are you doing to retain your engineering talent? Are you providing recognition? Are you increasing wages to match the industry?

The "Perfect Storm?"
With the need for skilled trades and skilled engineers in manufacturing increasing due to demand driven by economic recovery and capital expansion battling with the departure of the "baby boomers" of both disciplines with the return of the value of the 401K retirement plans, we could be set for a "Perfect Storm." That storm is a skills shortage not a people shortage. To compound the situation many companies underspent on maintenance during the recession creating assets that are unreliable and running with the defects of not being properly cared for. Now we are asking those same assets to produce more and run harder and those induced defects are coming to light. Do you have the skills to fix them?
What are you doing to keep the skilled, collect their knowledge, and equip the future employees for your success?
Will the loss of skills and knowledge take with it your reliability and in turn your ability to meet market demand?

Processes and Technology Not Processes or Technology

Many of us in the reliability world love to implement new technology in our plants. It might be a condition monitoring tool or a new piece of software like a EAM or CMMS. Today I wanted to share with you a study and graphic that shows the return on investment of both technology and process as well as the two together. In the beginning you start in the red box and you implement new toys and technology and you end up in the yellow box with a negative 7 percent return on investment from your new tools in old processes. So what if we went after better business processes first. By re-engineering our business processes and removing the waste we are able to generate a 27 percent return on investment and arrive in the blue box. Not a bad return but, if we combined our new processes with our new technology we are able to get a return on investment that is very respectable 75 percent and land in the orange square. It is the "synergy of and" versus the "tyranny of or." In the end for the most success we need both in our strategies. You need the processes to start the improvements and then the tools to support the processes for efficiency.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Unreliability

Both coins are fake silver

We are at a point where imitations, knock off, and off quality parts are making their way into our traditional MRO supply chain. Some estimate as much as ten percent of the materials purchased last year were counterfeit. If you look around you will begin to see the effects of these cheap parts. It is costing sites maintenance dollars, production output, and safety performance. It started with imitation bolts that did not meet the grade standards. Then it became apparent with wiring and electrical parts. Now we are seeing knock off bearings, belts, electrical cards and even whole machines. They are produced in China and India where making a perfect look alike copy is culturally a revered skill.
While in China recently I was shown domestically produced equipment that were copies of designs out of Europe and the US.  I even brought back a few copied items to share with my others to make the point. I chose smaller items that travel well but they are available in all sizes. The first one is the US and Chinese coins shown above and the second is the 14 gauge wire shown below. The orange and green spool of wire is labeled as 14 gauge but when you compare it to true 14 gauge RCA wire it contains about half the copper strands and total mass and is encased in a clear plastic shell that magnifies the copper making it look just like the nice heavy gauge wire. The coins were such accurate copies that even using some of the more common test they could not be distinguished. They ring like silver and they weigh the same as the silver coin they mimic but you guessed it they are not silver. I saw other items as well including bearings, grade 8 bolts, electrical connectors, all in perfect copy packaging but with no guarantee of their reliability.
If they were truly exact copies then other than the obvious intellectual property rights issues it would

RCA cable is real Pyramid Power is undersized fake

no be so bad but many of these copies are made with substituted material. For instance a bearing may look like a perfect copy all the way down to the packaging but the metal and production process used can be wildly different. Some are produced with scrap metal with no eye to the metallurgy required.
In the electrical world you see parts and electrical boards that have been copied or re manufactured after not passing initial quality inspections. These off quality boards were meant to be destroyed but instead were sent to facilities where they are "repaired" with no assurance of quality and reentered into the supply chain as "new" parts. The US government and aviation industry have both experienced this in the last year and the cost to replace the counterfeit components after the fact was staggering.
This is leading to failures that are affecting safety, environmental and profitability of facilities both in the US and abroad. I have provided a few links below to further educate about the potential of this problem to affect you and your facility now and in the future.  

Reference Links:
Bearings
WBA
Google search for fake bearings
Parts
IHS Parts
SAE Parts
Google search for counterfeit parts

Best Practice Metrics Performance Requires Best Practices...

Over the years I have worked with many sites all over the world specifically to help them with assessments of their "As is" state. These were in preparation for their reliability, safety, and operations improvement initiative that will help them attain their "to be" state and the performance gain that is associated with that improvement.
The assessment process has many different variations depending on the site and the topic but all of them should have three things in common. The three are:

• a metrics or key performance indicator review

• practices and documentation review

• interaction with as many of the affected and involved individuals as possible to understand application, culture, and norms 

If you are lucky then all three will tell a similar story and you can begin to plot a course to the "to be" state and the value of that progression. This does not always happen. Sometimes two will agree but one does not support the others. It is a bit like looking down at the dash of the car and seeing that your oil pressure is low and you are idling at 500 RPMs but your speedometers says you are traveling at 145 MPH. This indicated disconnect is concerning. Let me give you two industry examples. In the first example, let us say you are assessing a facility and you find well documented business processes but mediocre metrics performance and when you go to the plant floor and speak with the crafts, operators, and the supervisors you realize they don't know anything about the processes or the metrics. Or another possibility, maybe you find that the metrics show great performance but there are no or very limited business process and from the discussions with the site personnel you discover the site culture does not support the current level of metric performance or suggested reliability. This is where the improvement process can bog down. In the first example you would need to investigate to truly understand, but it appears on the surface that the business processes may have come from somewhere else and were never embraced or lost support for what ever reason. In the second example, the metrics may have been "optimized" over time which can cause them to get to a point where the math that is used to make them look so good is beyond science. I worked in one facility many years ago that regularly ran with an overall equipment effectiveness or OEE of 115. They ran a 115 with mediocre practices so there was still room for improvement. If they got it all right, there was potential to see 125 on a 100 scale metric but alas it did not happen as far as I know. Maybe they decided to change the math.
My point is that if the three areas of focus do not match you may want to use some root cause analysis tools to find the underlying causes. Once these are found then you can explain the disconnect between the three areas. The second step is to help the site see the mismatch in metrics, practices, application and culture. I like to use our maturity matrices which you can get here to help with this element. The site has to understand that world class performance on metrics has to be supported by world class performance in business process, culture, and application. Once they are comfortable with this then they can begin to embrace the true "as is" and discover the true potential that they can capture in the gap.
Have you experience the mis-match?