May 25, 2006
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May 25, 2006
Maintenance Management Tip
Don’t Micro-manage
I had just received my new job assignment; I was to replace Jack as facilities maintenance manager. One of the electricians approached me and said, “I just have one question: How are you planning on running this place?” Since Jack had been accustomed to accompanying his employees to the job and telling them exactly how to do every detail of the work, I felt I knew where the electrician was coming from. I responded, “I just have one question for you: How long have you worked here?” “Twenty years!” he responded. “Then I’ll tell you,” I said, “if you don’t know how to do your job by now, then I don’t need you…My job is to tell you what needs to be done, why it needs to be done, get you what it takes to do the job, and then get out of your way!” You never saw a bigger smile.
When we micro-manage our employees, we take away their pride of workmanship. Most folks want to be proud of their work.
Reader tip provided by Joe McAfee in Beebe Arkansas.
Thanks Joe - your Maintenance Tips hat is on the way
Send in your own Maintenance Tip and get a hat if we publish it!
May 25, 2006
Root Cause Analysis Leadership Certificate Program
Learn about causes of human error in the workplace as well as leadership and root cause analysis skills leading to recognition as a Certified PROACT Root Cause Analysis Lead Investigator.
Lead Investigator Series of workshops developed by root cause analysis experts at Reliability Center Inc. presents a unique curriculum for lead investigator training that covers the human side of failure and team leadership as well as forensics or physical failure investigation.
Students who complete the series and successfully complete a final exam to become Certified PROACT Root Cause Analysis Lead Investigators will be capable of analyzing failures and undesirable outcomes in a disciplined and methodical manner and producing comprehensive reports designed to provide the basis for corrective action. Their skills for facilitating root cause analysis, failure modes and effects analysis, and opportunity analysis activities are needed in a variety of business sectors, including health, environmental, safety, maintenance, operations, and human resources.
The six-workshop series covers the PROACT root cause analysis methodology, human error reduction, mechanical failure scene investigation, electrical and instrument failure, software training, and development of investigation skills using actual field situations.
May 25, 2006
An EAM trade-in offer that will set you free
The inefficiencies of your current EAM solution really have you pinned down. Worse yet, high costs coupled with annoying migration issues leave no wiggle room for future upgrades.
Let Avantis set you free. For a limited time only, trade in 50% of your current EAM software licenses for the Avantis EAM solution. FREE. Take advantage of this offer for a fast and low risk move to Avantis.
Learn more about this special offer
May 25, 2006
Arc Flash Tip
The arc-flash boundary is a distance at which a person working any closer at the time of an arc-flash may receive permanent injury (the onset of a second degree burn or worse) if not properly protected by flame-resistant (FR) clothing. Research has shown that permanent injury results from an arc-flash that causes an incident energy of 1.2 calories/centimeter2 (cal/cm2) or greater at the skin’s surface. This distance (boundary) cannot be determined by casual survey of electrical equipment. The only practical way of determining this boundary is to calculate the magnitude of the arc (a function of the available short circuit current), estimate how long the arc will last (a function of the interrupting time of the fuse or circuit breaker), and then calculate how far away an individual must be to avoid receiving an incident energy of 1.2 cal/cm2.
Tip from John C. Klingler, P.E, Lewellyn presentation delivered at the Predictive Maintenance Technology Conference, Sept 05
May 25, 2006
Reliability – Preparing for Tomorrow’s Maintenance World
New Jersey, June 6 - 7, World Leader in Equipment Reliability Explains How Reliability is a Key Corporate Strategy You Can’t Afford to Ignore
Join Al Weber, an internationally respected authority on reliability and founding chairman of the SMRP (Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals) for an invaluable educational experience.
“Asset reliability has become a hot topic at the executive level of most capital intensive companies. While the importance of reliability was first recognized in industries where equipment failure consequence could be catastrophic, the topic has now become popular throughout all capital intensive industries because of the many ways that reliability impacts competitiveness.”
– Al Weber
Attend Al’s 2-day workshop, “Reliability – Preparing for Tomorrow’s Maintenance World” to gain a thorough understanding of what it takes to make your plant more reliable – and achieve breakthrough performance. Drawing on over 30 years of experience, Al will provide insight on how asset reliability has evolved to become an important element of corporate strategy and discuss how you can take a reliability leadership role in your company.
Next workshop, June 6 – 7, New Jersey.
May 25, 2006
Maintenance Planning Tip
Principle #2
A simple definition of future work is: the crew has not yet been assigned to start on the work order. Once a crew has started working on a job and they find out they need more parts information, they do not come to the planner for assistance. If the planner is constantly helping technicians find file information for jobs-in-progress, the planner has no time to file or retrieve job information to help future work and a vicious cycle is in place. A planner must be able to find those last three work orders from the last four years to help the crew avoid previous problems. For example, if the planner finds that the last time the crew worked this job they did not have a certain part, the planner makes sure they have that part this time. So the job is on a learning curve. Looking to the files helps get that improvement opportunity. And that lets the planner focus on getting all of the work planned in advance. In addition, if a planner can tabulate the previous cost, better repair or replace decisions can be made. This arrangement is also necessary for the crew supervisors to maintain their familiarity with the files and encourages feedback from the technicians. Once a technician has to find technical information for a job, feedback to the files is encouraged if he knows that otherwise, the next time he works the job he will have to find the information again himself.
Tip written by Doc Palmer and provided by GenesisSolutions
http://www.genesissolutions.com
Tel: 203-431-0281
May 25, 2006
Why Reliability Has Been So Hard to Achieve
Why Reliability Has Been So Hard to Achieve –
Understanding the REAL Problem and How to Solve it
By Ricky Smith, CMRP, Reliability Strategy Leader, Ivara Corp
Optimal equipment reliability is more about equipment performance, and less about equipment failure. Reliable equipment delivers the performance we need. Improved reliability leads to improved plant throughput. It also reduces the risk of maintenance related safety issues and the risk of environmental non-compliance. On the personal side, employees working with highly reliable equipment enjoy predictable work schedules and as a result, a much higher quality of life.
For decades, companies have applied a variety of solutions to the reliability problem. Technology solutions include CMMS (EAM), Predictive Maintenance technologies (PdM), data historians, on-line monitoring, and hand-held devices. Consulting solutions have focused on improving planning and scheduling, benchmarking, work flows and KPI’s. Why have these solutions failed?
None of these solutions address the real problem: that people are doing the wrong work.
Wrong work is a combination of too much too early, too little too late or work that has not well justified. The classic example of the wrong work is justified as “we have always done it this way”. Since 50% of all proactive work being conducted in a reactive environment is actually the wrong work, there is a very significant financial opportunity associated with getting to the right work.
The right work is the minimum amount of work necessary to ensure the asset provides the necessary level of performance. Since the majority of failures occur randomly, and are not related to age, techniques such as asset heath monitoring are needed to allow us to intervene prior to loss of asset function.
Yet, the answer is not as simple as solely identifying the right work. In a reactive environment, a binder filled with proactive tasks is not a solution. In a fully proactive environment, the focus on maintenance work becomes inspections of asset heath to enable proactive intervention prior to failure.
If you are frustrated by the slow rate of improvement, or have had difficulty in reaching internal strategic consensus on how to solve your reliability and performance issues, you need to quickly solidify a reliability improvement strategy, followed by rapid implementation. Targeted benefits must be concrete, quantifiable and achievable, as opposed to the unfulfilled expectations of the past internal projects. And the solution must address the most frustrating roadblocks experienced in the failed or marginally successful internal projects, namely those related to culture change.
It’s time to change the current (tinkering) approach to equipment reliability improvement to an approach that consists of changes to the business processes for guiding people’s activities, supported by improved reliability practices and tools. Employees must be trained on the latest reliability thinking and practices, and equipped with tools to manage the data inherent in a proactive environment.
This tip provided Ivara Corporation
http://www.ivara.com
May 18, 2006
How Good Is Your Predictive Maintenance Program?
Are you interested in a no cost way to get an outside perspective on your Predictive Maintenance programs strengths as well as the opportunities for improvement?
Do you want to generate a Return on Investment (ROI) from your maintenance program?
Enter Uptime Magazine’s PdM Program of the Year Competition to see how your program compares to dozens of other winning programs. There is no cost to enter.
Simply applying for the PdM Program of the Year will make you a winner.
Entry Deadline: June 1
May 18, 2006
Arc Flash Tip
Arc-Flash Boundary
Arc-flash boundaries are required around electrical equipment such as switchboards, panelboards, industrial control panels, motor control centers, and similar equipment when an individual works on or in the proximity of “exposed energized” (energized and not enclosed, shielded, covered, or otherwise protected from contact) components. This includes conducting activities such as examination, adjustment, servicing, maintenance or troubleshooting. Equipment energized below 240V need not be considered unless fed by a 112.5KVA transformer or larger.
Tip from John C. Klingler, P.E, Lewellyn presentation delivered at the Predictive Maintenance Technology Conference, Sept 05
