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Archive for the ‘Reliability’ Category

Forethought & Investment Strategies

Friday, April 9th, 2010

One of the hurdles to reliability implementation or maintenance and business practice improvement is the cost to move forward.

The market pressure can be stated as “shareholders want dividends and they want them now”, but those same shareholders also require a viable and reliable future revenue stream. Of course, that describes the investor as opposed to the speculator, but if we must manage corporations to please that type of shareholder, we will run companies into the ground.

Securing plant and production reliability addresses the concern of stability: a steady, recurrent revenue stream, as opposed to one plagued by unpredictable hiccups. Obviously, other concerns also drive profitability, such as the price of the oil-barrel for petrochemical plants and refineries, but it becomes us to reduce chaos and to manage whatever factors or aspects of business that can be controlled.

When faced with cost considerations for implementation, ask yourself whether or not the current practices can largely guarantee an uncompromised delivery of product in the future, knowing that profitability and dividends tie in directly with that same production. Reliability’s foundation is forethought and confronting probable and possible events with a view to the desired outcome.

Posted in Asset Management, Reliability | No Comments »

Change Culture Club (1), or Consultancy and Consensus

Monday, February 15th, 2010

WARNING: the reader is forewarned that while revealing to some degree, this article may confront endemic attitudes and be difficult to accept. This being said, like many other issues, not talking about them doesn’t make them miraculously go away. So we hope you can enjoy this minor brainstorm in spite of the disturbances it may bring. Triggering the right questions or a little introspection may sometimes be helpful.

I was once told that the percentage of success of personal therapies lies close to 18%, although I’ll admit I have never sought the truth of the matter (I do recall conversations with a former “significant other” specialized in this area of endeavor, and the gist of these conversations seemed to concur with the appallingly low success rate). Apparently, tribal witch doctors embarked on a similar mission to help an individual seem to achieve a success rate of… 18%… Certain prescription drug assisted therapies are far more successful for specific conditions, but as a whole, the above seems to hold water.

It would be easy to conclude that there may be a repetitive pattern in this accomplishment: therapy seeks to trigger or support change, and in this respect, the therapist’s work parallels the approach of the business or engineering consultant.

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, BUT… the light bulb REALLY, REALLY has to WANT to CHANGE!!! And with that relatively stale joke, we uncover one of the great secrets of reliability consultancy: your consultant(s) will not change anything, YOU will! Well, actually, you might! But ONLY if doggedly determined to achieve a continuous improvement loop and/or specific targeted goals.

It would be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the consulting firm therefore serves little or no purpose. Here, then, is another rule of consultancy: if you could, you would! The stern review of current activities, the guidelines to establish a road map for change, the assessment of best and quickest results to be obtained (also called low lying fruit), the benchmark for exemplary or best practices, the traps and pitfalls to avoid, the identification of the areas where MORE money should be spent (and conversely, areas where money can be saved because it is an ineffective or inefficient use of resources), all of those items pertain to the expertise of said consultant.

Many firms choose to sugar-coat everything. Here is another rule: if you HAVE to SUGAR COAT it, the organization likely has not attained the maturity that will allow it to break its previous bad habits!Some years back, one consulting firm’s VP put it succinctly when the author raised concerns in one project: “Doesn’t matter! We get out fat fee anyway, and may get to do it again at the same location in the future…” Perplexed? Dubious? I agree, because so was this wincing writer! We all need the money (the rent, the mortgage, the business expenses), but must we be so crass and uncaring about it? This being said, the blunt reality must be addressed, but doing so with good humor and a view to how best to promote change remains inherent to our mission.

A recent challenge to our consulting wisdom was issued abroad where management customarily relies on a consensus culture. The rule applies: if you could, you would! Therefore, if they had been able to promote needed changes, or had they been capable under the current hierarchy, organization, system and culture to deliver (product, improvement, KPI, other) on target, we would not have been involved.

And Consensus?
Too many cooks… Imagine if the purchase of a car were open to negotiation or discussion for each and every component of that car. The process would be laborious and tedious, and the end result would quite likely be a monstrosity.

Somewhere along the line, the “car” would surely become a “vehicle” and every possible function of that car within a family, business or industrial context would be considered by participants. The size and footprint of small cars is interesting and so is their energy efficiency, but that shovel on the payloader is “oh so very useful”… What do you mean by “the shovel is heavier than the car”. Never mind the hydraulics, we’ll just leave the shovel at ground level all the time. Or install hydraulic stabilizer legs on the car to stabilize it when we lift the shovel. This is the underlying cause to the “camel” joke: a horse designed by a committee. And perhaps this writer can raise a few smiles by latching on to one of the Hispanic definitions of camel: difficult, laborious, improbable to bring to term. Clearly not our target!

Consensus implies input from various parties, and discussion. Some people will lend tremendous ideas to the process and will definitely have an impact on the end result. Some participants around the table, or involved at arm’s length (teleconferencing, minutes of the meeting, email distribution) will lend a cursory opinion, and no more. And someone will have to choose a course of action and take a decision. Managing is not a democracy!

A brief parenthesis about democracies, since I mentioned cars earlier: one individual had several daughters and to cut short “consensus” issues on car color, each daughter in turn chose the color of the family car. That is how the poor man ended up in a lemon yellow car for a few years.

Back to our main topic:

Seeking consensus about change ignores some basic principles of human psychology. We tend to resist change. We tend to reject it if we can. There is strong criticism whenever change is proposed, and such may be brushed aside as an agent of resistance to change. Yet, change for the sake of change serves no purpose.

What do you seek to accomplish? As consultants, we have waltzed in so many places where metrics (KPI or otherwise) were weak, distorted or inexistent at the outset. Can we rely on bad data? Can we nail our targets down when the underpinning of information paints an inaccurate picture of what we want to change?

In fact, we can, but it also becomes part of the mission to get the numbers to truly reflect the reality of the situation. Often times, a client would like the current numbers to become the basis for payment. This is feasible, but rife with problems when the numbers have been manipulated.

To be continued…

Posted in Articles & Papers, Asset Management, Condition Monitoring, Maintenance, Program Management, Reliability, Reliability: Implementation, Reliability: Methods | No Comments »

Resistance to Change (2)

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Legitimate Concerns
Either some adjustments are needed to make the proposed changes function properly, or there are hurdles or barriers that have not been considered. Perhaps the product / change / project / system does not meet the objecter’s expectations of quality (or other, such as technical level), or there are known issues that the salesperson would not reveal.

Feedback from other parties (different location or facility within the corporation, friends, colleagues, or other) may point out severe problems.

Very often, some person voicing a legitimate concern may not be capable of fully expressing the reasons behind their reticence (oddly enough). The objecting party “feels” the proposed solution to be wrong for their environment.

If consensus must be achieved, develop a checklist and discuss the proposed goals with the vendor / service provider, and never forget to get the agreement in writing, detailing the issues, what the solution will address, and how it will achieve this.

Posted in Asset Management, Consulting, Program Management, Reliability: Implementation, Reliability: Methods | No Comments »

Resistance to Change (1)

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

The infamous “resistance” to any proposed change takes many forms.

There are legitimate concerns, there’s contrariness, there’s fear of change, there’s protectionism, there’s a confrontation with a history of failed or abandoned initiatives, and finally, refusal to execute the work involved in the implementation of change, which unfortunately amounts to plain laziness.

Arriving at a consensus within a group of people may well face every previously stated type of objection, making compliance and adoption of almost any novelty / improvement / project difficult or even impossible at the best of times, no matter the value of the proposed initiative or change.

Over the course of the next few days (we hope), the author will endeavor to write out a few thoughts on each of the above.

Contrariness
The contrarian takes two forms: he can be a naysayer to anything he does not himself initiate, and thus, becomes a negative influence and rarely a helping hand in any of the activities of the group, corporate or otherwise, or he can be a conscientious critic of unlikely, unpalatable, unreasonable, inefficient or ineffective practices, methods or proposed “advances”, seeking to ensure quality and thoughtful of achieving specific goals. Of course, whether or not the contrarian can deliver his message in palatable form remains a challenge, and the (often different or opposed) views tendered by said contrarian can clash with the majority or the view adopted by leadership. Both require considerable maturity to accept the opposing current and trigger intelligent discussions based on analyzing what that impopular person is saying to obtain the value or pointed correctives that his views may contain.

In the above, “unlikely, unpalatable, unreasonable, inefficient or ineffective practices, methods or proposed “advances”…” could merely signify that there may be room for better adjustments or they may be downright necessary: the person deemed a contrarian may merely seek a slightly better approach, or more bang for the (same) buck…

As examples…
One anecdote I often use (and may even be found in another posting on this site) is the advent of the first Windows-based or Windows-compatible (the Microsoft registered brand used without permission, not the household-type) vibration condition-monitoring software. Given the current preponderance of that operational system or platform, the reader will understand a few years have gone by since the anecdotal incident.

That software’s main qualities were:
1) it was going to be first to market under the increasingly dominant Windows (see previous disclaimer),
2) it actually worked without crashing,
3) it simplified report printing and layouts, but only for what was now extremely basic (or entry-level) reporting.

The same software principal defects were:
1) It offered little except basic functions, made readily accessible not through any ingenious design, but merely through the Graphic-User Interface’s benefits,
2) the software did away with many of the useful application functions that were readily available under DOS (but of course, that was going to be rectified in the future, meaning probably never),
3) it cost a frightening amount of money

My attempts at making suggestions to achieve expansion from the foundation we previously had, as opposed to devolution in terms of application, were met with allusions to “resistance to change”, when in fact, the nature of my objections was “Nice eye-candy, where’s the meat?” or where was the substance to assist analysts in better doing their jobs.

Another valid example, when faced with various problems during a reliability audit done under another company’s auditing process (or lack thereof), was to ask whether the process had been the subject of an FMEA (Failure Modes & Effects Analysis). After all, if you sell the science, the execution and the mindset, you should be interested in applying all of the previous to your own product, whether physical or service oriented.

In the previous statement, my “or lack thereof” was unfair, and of the naysayer contrariness type: in all fairness, they did have a process, but the process should have been accompanied by clear directives and guidelines as to “do’s and dont’s”. The process should have benefitted from strong warnings against allowing corporate tag-alongs during execution. My suggestion that an FMEA would clearly have established problems with such a practice came from obvious hurdles such as the reluctance of audit interview participants to formulate their answers in the presence of a corporate representative.

Opposing views leads to (minor) confrontation, and people are increasingly uncomfortable with disagreement or argumentation. Yet, out of the clashes of ideas are born the better or even best solutions. HBR (Harvard Business Review) and other management article sources state that the increasing disappearance of differing opinion hurts business.

For the well-meaning contrarian, perhaps the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Posted in Asset Management, Consulting, Program Management, Reliability: Methods, War Stories | No Comments »

“Best” Practices

Monday, March 30th, 2009

The benefit of wielding several languages can sometimes be found in the details of how another culture considers an expression or statement that pervades our culture to the extent where we no longer question it! Take “Best Practices”, for instance…

The French language instantly applies a caveat to that now sacred cow of a buzzword: it becomes Exemplary Practices. We immediately get a different sense of importance as that critical nuance gets introduced, since Best and Exemplary ring altogether different bells.

The problem with Best can be readily summed up: “Best” for the people who use it, in their business, industry, context, environment, management style, CMMS or EAM, may well be far from the bull’s eye for YOUR plant. Sadly, “Best” may be a lie!

“Exemplary”, on the other hand, avoids the pushy arrogance of stating “this is the way you should also manage, work, implement, or execute”. Instead, it gently introduces itself as an example of methods that work for certain people in their very specific circumstances.

Thus, the reader may concur that “exemplary” may well be much better than “best”! An odd conundrum, to say the least!

Posted in Maintenance, Reliability | No Comments »

Unraveled Reliability

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Humans are creatures of habit. They perform along certain established “known” lines of action, and reject the unknown quantities as potential failures or as unnecessary supplementary effort quite likely to yield identical (and sometimes worse) results. Due consideration for said results may at times ignore the fact that the additional benefits are seen elsewhere by people with a different skillset (for instance, the habit of entering ALL pertinent data in a CMMS merely seems overly long and tedious, whereas the manager wishes to mine the data to yield significant indicators that may or may not be understood at the keyboard entry level).

Changing any one “train of thought” is possible, but even that requires patience and dexterity in managing the change and shifting attitudes towards new goals. Attempting to change several known parameters towards newfangled ways of doing things can thus be readily demonstrated as both dangerous and most likely ineffective in the long run. A change can be achieved in the short run whilst a constant push is maintained to hold up the massive “old ways” but the second we remove the sustaining presence of that force, the old ways will seek to return back into familiar patterns.

How does this affect reliability efforts? Another author (and I seemingly can not readily find the reference at present) calls it the “6 months rule”. People will (albeit often grudgingly) go along with new methods for a period of six months and then, if no obvious results or benefits can be identified from their point of view, these same people will stop believing (if they ever did) that potential rewards will soon appear.

Six months is an exceedingly short time when projects are handled in parallel to regular tasks. The vaunted “trial period” may be shorter than many implementations when execution is handled internally, and contracting out requires adequate budgets and an ever expanding relationship with the contractor to achieve the desired ends within a short time period.

Bottom line: if implementation must succeed, sustained efforts (and money) must be provided to deliver quickly!~

Posted in Maintenance, Reliability, Reliability: Implementation, Reliability: Methods | No Comments »

Capital Investment Versus Maintenance Cost

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

We can likely never reach a conclusion befitting the complexity of the following question: should we buy new equipment, replacing the “old”, or should we repair what is currently installed and already paid?

Problems from an operating cost quickly arise when from a matter of policy, no “new” expenditure can take place to pay for asset replacement: maintenance falls into a rut, incapable of effectively managing reliability, and the plant becomes overly expensive for such simple matters as aging (and obsolete or “too often repaired”) assets.

The case of the electric motor comes to mind. How often should a motor be repaired or rewound, excluding purely mechanical components such as a bearing replacement? Three repair cycles is generally recognized as the upper limit (some may disagree). What is the principal cost tied to the electric motor? Its purchase price? In fact, the cost of power consumption (and waste if inefficiencies accumulate) far exceeds the purchase price, or the difference in price between a high-efficiency electric motor and a relatively inefficient one.

Failure to evaluate (or reassess in cases where the original evaluation was made years in the past) the true costs of operation tied to electric motors lead to unreliable operation and stupendously superior energy expenditures. The breakpoint of “buy new” versus “operate the inefficient” is reached much sooner than most people intuitively assess. Therefore, the payback period of such a project as buying a new motor must be set at a time-period enabling plant cost viability. Is 3 months too long a payback? Is the plant not going to stay in operation for years to come? Worse is the cumulative effect of spreading the “disease” to a large population of motors and eventually facing huge cost overruns that can then only be addressed by massive injections of capital instead of dealing with this issue progressively and constantly during the plant’s life.

“In this business climate, we know not how long we will continue production!” seems to be a common concern, but since usable assets would likely be shipped to a more viable site, the expense still holds as a reasonable approach.

Posted in Maintenance, Reliability | No Comments »

Reliability Challenges & Fundamentals

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Numerous experts report the undeniable absolute necessity of management conviction and dedication for reliability efforts to result in a proper and sustained “field” (that would be the plant floor) implementation. No argument could possibly otherwise convince us or our readers. We agree on something.

Why then do we see a generalized backtracking to antiquated methods or unwitting feeble returns from reliability approaches? Where is this management commitment when reports from the field indicate reliable methods get implemented and then seem to vanish into thin air or quickly get set aside? Why is apparent regression almost inevitable?

What some may fail to mention is the capital importance of fundamentals. And these essentials may escape most of the “business model improvement” proponents due to a simple and quite ugly fact: the “business” people rarely speak with the technical personnel who get the maintenance train on track and keep it there. And when they do, as they are often used to speaking very different languages, these parties may have limited exchanges or communications due to the different focus or interests they manifest.

The communication gap may be further aggravated by a largely false perception in head offices that the technical people remain uneducated. Nowadays, their credentials and pertinent experience may even at times exceed those of decision makers. This is not to criticize anyone: the preceding merely attempts to state occasionally occurring (and previously encountered) circumstances.

The predictive maintenance and condition-based approach to maintenance and reliability are vital to success. Yet, these facets of maintenance and engineering have been in place for some time, with often poor to moderate results (the author is being kind; so many PdM or CBM programs are hobbled structurally and technically that their returns can only be qualified as hobbled). The promise of fabulous returns can not be met when the program is not “fed” properly: investment, education (training at ALL levels) and sensible recognition of efforts, to name but a few factors too often missing from the final recipe…

What makes you think that doing the same thing in the same way will now yield a better result? What will now be done to properly adjust the targeting? The liabilities (or problems) and personnel are the same. Or personnel keeps changing in turnstile-mode.

Of course, critics might glumly reply “Have you not been part of the system that created the ineffectiveness we must now endure?”, a pertinent albeit biased question. We propose a viable working platform or product to our clients. We might express it as “we sell a car”. The client then plays pick and choose, dismantling the platform to purchase (allegorically) the two left-side wheels, one rear bumper, and parts of the engine, instead of buying the whole functional vehicle. The reasons are many and they feel justified in this purchasing approach: they already have two right-side wheels (of a different size), one bumper and engine parts (likely mixing centimeters and inches), so they feel they can reassemble a working whole. The truth seems to point to “wishful thinking”.

An example? Some years back as I instructed a Vibration Analysis 1 course for one of the main vendors in our field of endeavor, two technicians showed up from an automotive parts manufacturing plant. They expressed their concerns relative to the course, having discussed with their supervisor what they felt was their need for training (they would have been more comfortable with an introductory course instead of the one they were now to attend). I assured them of my availability over lunch and after regular hours should they face serious hurdles, and also told them I ran a very open classroom where questions were welcome at any time. This can be helpful, but if fear of ridicule and timidity become the governing concern of the puzzled, our best efforts to remain available yield little in the way of improved comprehension. At any rate, they never availed themselves of the repeatedly tendered “extra” support or semi-private sessions.

Most Level 1 courses clearly state a need for 6 months prior experience and/or having attended an introductory class. These two participants were lacking in both respects. Net result: come evaluation time, these two felt that the vendor offering this training was only interested in revenue and they never should have been “allowed” to attend that course.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion. Ours would differ slightly: in the hopes of saving some training dollars, their supervisor sent these participants to a course that was above their current reach. In so doing, he wasted more training dollars than he saved. He also exposed his technicians to a little discouragement, and lower motivation due to perceived difficulties.

Could the problem have been resolved right then and there by using a different approach? Course contents did not lend itself to a quick readjustment: other participants quite liked that course and got what they came for, but then, they had the necessary bases to absorb the curriculum.

To the previous example, we should also add the unpopularity of introductory courses in certain areas of the world. The “client” (purchasing or management) feel them to be a reach for more $$$, when in fact, the participant get swamped with too much material when attending the “chosen” (not by them) higher-level course.

Worse yet, in those same areas, when a certification exam is faced at the end of a week’s training, some participants have at times been warned that failure would equate dismissal. Sitting (or writing) an exam that is meant to cull the untrained may dauntingly challenge the neophyte.

Another sad hurdle to reliability excellence remains the discrepancy in pay rate and benefits afforded those who practice it adequately. Sooner or later, if competent technical personnel find they may be given better opportunities elsewhere, they will jump ship and seek out better climes. There are management or HR theories about pay scales and bonuses (this writer will purposely stay away from them as readers might be offended by psychological aspects of remuneration), but an occasional carrot, such as two checks waiting in the wings (gold and silver medals, if you wish) might yield surprising competitive benefits. Or setting PdM program goals and tying a bonus to meeting those targets.

Proactive engineering steps used hand in hand with precision maintenance yield better reliability. The latter is undeniable. Yet, without a strong predictive program, above and beyond any scheduled preventive replacements (likely arising from an RCM study) and inspections, production and asset reliability will remain out of reach.

PdM / CBM or Condition-Monitoring ARE the technical foundation that can be encouraged, but not managed at any level other than that of maintenance and engineering. In other words, if reliability is a fortification against trouble and decay and a guarantee of productivity, the walls or battlements depend on solid groundwork called predictive maintenance.

Simply put, Asset Reliability (and maintenance) can not be driven by failure-detection if predictive efforts remain incapable of perceiving faults.

Posted in Condition Monitoring, Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, Program Management, Reliability, Reliability: Methods, Training, War Stories | No Comments »

Change? Or Upheaval?

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

We often hear the words “change management” as an adjunct to reliability efforts. Yet, if one is to trust reports of reliability effort failures and abandonment, or reversal / devolution to earlier methods (or lack thereof), something must surely be going awry in the way we attempt to do things.

Change can be good, and it is inevitable, but too much change at the same time overwhelms personnel. A new approach to data input into the CMMS or EAM requires training and a little time for old (and usually inadequate) habits to get reformed. If management simultaneously modifies a whole list of other things, the chance of success in implementation suffers a considerable negative impact.

We are all too aware of the existence of resistance to change. “Better” must be demonstrated and proven before wholehearted adoption can take place. And criticism along the way will likely occur. The arguments of “bad faith” and “you’re resisting the change” usually point to bad implementation (key word would be usually: some people will just reject anything new out of hand).

As an example, I am reminded some 15 years back of the arrival of a software package for vibration-based condition monitoring. One of the (or perhaps just “the”) first operating on a Windows platform. It was pretty. It was easy to use. But its failings lay entirely in technical contents (or lack thereof): you could not do (at release) what had been common fare with the DOS version. As a matter of fact, I’m not entirely sure the final version could either, but that’s another story. Comments with respect the technical deficiencies or missing functions brought annoyed replies implying “resistance to change”. Was that the case? The passage to Windows and its GUI were good, no doubt. An SQL database was also a much needed improvement. The price to pay was high: the loss of technical contents needed to properly assist the analyst proved contentious for a long time.

The problems encountered while managing change often arise from a lack of understanding (or even caring) of the needs of all parties involved in the execution of the mission (production, maintenance, other). Things work out better when all parties are consulted BEFORE an initiative launches, and that means all parties at all locations of an organization (the needs, or the level of change, may differ considerably). When scepticism arises or when questions are asked, one needs to confront them head on, with pertinent answers.

Bottom line: enthusiasm and the embrace of movelty may be formidable drivers, but if the homework has not been done to convince others, support their needs and address their concerns, reliability (and other) initiatives may fail, with regressions, dismal results (in ROI terms), or simple failure to launch properly.

Posted in Maintenance, Program Management, Reliability | No Comments »

Capacitación y Certificación Institucional en Latina Ameríca

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Varios años atrás, durante una serie de cursos dictados en varios países tales como Venezuela y México, se me ocurio que el profesional en Latina Ameríca, tendría mayor beneficio en tomar en sus propias manos el asunto institucional de manejar la supervisión del predictivo, de la vibración y de esas otras disciplinas necesarias al completar una buena confiabilidad industrial.

Así me recuerdo proponer varias veces de crear la fundación o sea, el núcleo de un tal acercamiento para adelantar una independización local, regional o nacional en materias o sujetos pertinentes. De repente, mientras seguía algo de mi entusiasmo inicial, supongo que aproximadamente 150 ingenieros de 4 o 5 países estuvieron expuestos al concepto, y todos quedaron de acuerdo para decir hasta que punto era buena la idea, que ayudaría la revolución predictiva, etc. Entonces, después de tanto tiempo, ¿cuantos emails he recibido al proposito? ¡Ni el primero! Lo que trae mi queja: en términos profesionales, a pesar de unas variaciones al nivel educacional, el ingeniero al Sur logra la meta, pero en términos gerenciales, si a veces nos espanta el problema de la falta de empoderamiento (o sea “empowerment”) por las pesadas estructuras empresariales, la conclusión del experimento era que el profesional no se empodera a si mismo. Fuera de lo que paga la empresa, no se invierte hacia el progreso. Siento la molestia si alguien queda un poco bravo al leer lo previo. La muestra fue limitada. De repente, el proyecto no tenia lo suficiente apoyo oficial. Pues, lo oficial, uno lo crea de si mismo, con trabajo y con tiempo. El CMVA tendrá dentro de poco su cumpleaños con 25 reuniones anuales realizadas. Tuvó que montarse la primera antes de llegar al cuarto de siglo.

Posted in Reliability, Spanish / Español, Training, Vibration | No Comments »

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