Involving engineering in reliability
Moving beyond the practices of your organization as a whole, it’s important to focus on what each department can do individually. Engineering and design teams play a major role in your equipment’s reliability, since they design the system in the first place.
Reliability centered design
The initial design phase of a project has the greatest impact on how much it will cost over its entire lifetime in terms of maintenance. In fact, those costs generally become fixed during the initial design phase, and they’ll most likely remain consistent once the system is complete. In addition, as many as 70% of all equipment failures occur during the startup phase, making them a result of poor design or installation.
Ultimately, a system needs to be designed with reliability in mind right from the very beginning. That means the operational and maintenance needs of the facility need to be communicated to the engineering team as early in the process as possible.
Inherent reliability
One factor that engineers need to consider when designing a system is the inherent reliability of each component. Inherent reliability is a statistic set by the manufacturer, and it’s based on the way a piece of equipment is built, the parts it uses, and the level/type of maintenance the manufacturer anticipates the end-user will employ.
Inherent reliability isn’t the same as actual reliability, which depends on the actual usage of the machine in the facility, the way it’s maintained, and what types of conditions/loads it’s likely to face.
When choosing equipment, the engineering team should take into account its inherent reliability, as well as the context of its own facility in order to make a sound decision.
Collaboration with operations and maintenance
Often, those decisions are based on collaboration with operators and maintenance teams. Without open communication from O&M on what their needs are, the system’s actual reliability will likely be at least somewhat limited.
In particular, some of the items that O&M should communicate on include:
- Accessibility requirements (i.e. for performing repairs and inspections).
- Workplace conditions, such as temperature, humidity, power, vibrations, etc.
- Types of loads and materials to be processed.
- The functionality of the equipment.
- The ways different pieces of equipment interact.
When taking these items into account, the engineering team should still strive for cost-effectiveness, just not at the expense of long-term reliability.
Involving operations in reliability
Operations plays a critical role in reliability, more so than many might believe. Operators work directly with the equipment, so they tend to be closest to any issues that may occur. As such, there is a great deal that they can do in order to make sure the equipment keeps running reliably.
Proper operation of equipment
One of the ways in which operators can contribute toward reliability—or the lack thereof—is by the way they operate equipment. Each machine in a facility has its specific applications, tolerances, and operating parameters, and if it’s pushed beyond those limits, it’s more likely to have an untimely breakdown.
Training workers to use equipment properly is key. Assuming the system is properly designed, correct operation practices will ensure that it handles the loads moving through the production line without failing.
Coordination with maintenance
Another way that the operations department can support reliability is by coordinating with maintenance. Part of that responsibility rests upon maintenance crews—after all, if routine work needs to be performed on an asset to keep it working, they should notify operators and communicate the need to have it taken offline at the designated time.
However, operations should also be involved in informing the maintenance department about current equipment issues. Many facilities have a system set up where operators submit work requests whenever they detect a problem, with the end result of giving the maintenance team greater visibility over the facility’s equipment.
Performing minor equipment upkeep
In addition to coordinating with maintenance to get important work done, operators can be directly involved in caring for equipment. That often means tightening loose parts, lubricating equipment on a recurring schedule, and performing regular cleaning.
Encouraging operators to perform these tasks helps them to feel a greater sense of responsibility for the equipment they work on, which in turn is conducive to developing a reliability-centered culture.
Involving supply and procurement in reliability
Supply and procurement departments have the responsibility of making sure replacement parts are available for maintenance crews. Without effective involvement on their part, maintenance efforts are handicapped and reliability suffers. Involving procurement teams means making sure they purchase the right parts, keep the right number of them in stock, and take care of those items properly.
Securing the right replacement parts
In order to make sure supply teams obtain the right spares, they need to coordinate with maintenance and operations. Often, decisions are made based on price alone, and minor differences in a part’s specifications or tolerances may be ignored, resulting in either subpar parts or the wrong part altogether.
When obtaining spares, procurement should keep in mind FFF:
- Form – The shape and dimensions of the item.
- Fit – Whether the item fits your equipment.
- Function – The function the item is intended to play.
Quality is another function. Subpar pieces, while initially cheaper to purchase, may lead to greater losses in the long run if their use results in equipment failure.
Keeping the right number of items in storage
Housing spares has its expenses, so you don’t want to keep too many items in stock. However, having too few can result in stockouts that may prolong equipment downtime and increase costs, as you wait for necessary spares to be shipped.
In the process of planning how many of each item to keep on hand, it’s again worthwhile for procurement to coordinate with maintenance and operations. In particular, maintenance should provide information on how many of each part is needed in order to satisfy the demands of recurring PMs, possible equipment failures, and potential (if unlikely) catastrophic breakdowns.
Combined with their own data on lead times for obtaining those parts, procurement and supply personnel can determine the optimum number of items to keep in stock.
Storing spares properly
In addition to storing the right number of items, MRO supply teams should make sure those items are properly stored. Some items need to be kept within certain conditions, while others have a limited shelf life. More sensitive spares typically include:
- Lubricants
- Oils
- Sealants
- Paints
- Adhesives
- Batteries
- O rings
- Belts
- Hoses
The shelf life for these items and the conditions they need to be kept in should factor into MRO inventory optimization.
Involving management in reliability
Upper management, including executives and financial officers, play their own role in reliability as well, even though they tend to be among the most far removed from the physical equipment used in production processes. Their bird’s-eye perspective on the different departments and the organization as a whole is a vital part of making sure everyone works together to create more reliable facilities.
Long-range planning and goal setting
Ultimately, setting reliability goals should begin within senior management. In connection with those actionable goals for the organization, there needs to be long-range plans set in place.
The plans set forth by management should be designed to help each department fulfill its role in supporting reliability. At times, they may need adjustment, and consultation with O&M can help them do that.
Funding decisions
Without adequate funding, the efforts attempted by each department can be quickly frustrated. Senior management should make sure each department gets the funding it needs in order to fulfill its role. For engineers, that means having adequate capital for quality machines, for procurement, it’s funding for parts, and so on.
Of course, that funding should be intended to lower costs in the long run. The goal is to prevent costly equipment downtime, improve quality and consistency, and increase profitability. Senior management should make sure those goals are met.
Striking a balance
Ultimately, reliability is everyone’s mission, and it’s important to make sure each department is involved in supporting it. Even if they aren’t directly involved, they still have an impact, whether they’re designing a production line or ordering replacement parts.
Putting organization-wide reliability into practice may take some time, training, and resources, and it often involves a dramatic shift in the way your workers, managers, and other personnel view their daily tasks. However, the end result is a more cohesive organization, better communication, and (of course) more dependable processes.
When planning new ways to improve reliability, we often focus on maintenance. So too when something goes wrong, the maintenance crew is often blamed.
However, reliability isn’t the responsibility of maintenance alone. In fact, maintenance departments on average only own 17% of all plant losses, while other departments are responsible for the remaining 83%.
This means everyone at a facility is responsible for reliability. Whether intentionally or not, each department will likely have some kind of impact on it, so it’s important that your organization takes measures to make that impact positive.
Departments that impact reliability
Maintenance definitely has its role in keeping up the reliability of a facility and its equipment. However, the maintenance department can’t do everything. Other departments, including those listed below, play a significant role as well when it comes to reliability.
Engineering
Engineering and system design form a vital component of reliability. After all, if the system isn’t designed to be consistent and reliable from the outset, it will be very difficult—if not impossible—to make that system more reliable later on. On the other hand, if a system is built to fail less often, then it will be far more reliable in the long run.
Operations
Operations crews should be involved in the maintenance and reliability of equipment. Open communication with the maintenance department is critical in keeping up on necessary maintenance and prevention of equipment failures, and workers should operate equipment within its intended parameters.
Procurement and supply
Equipment is only as reliable as its individual parts, and when those parts wear out, they need to be replaced with spares that are up to the same tasks. This means procurement and supply teams should be conscious of equipment requirements in the facility and obtain MRO parts that meet those requirements.
Senior management
To tie everything together, senior management needs to be involved in keeping everything in the facility running smoothly. That means making sure each department plays its role in the process, from engineering and design, to procurement and operations, all from their high-level positions.
Reliability also benefits when senior management works to foster a culture of reliability through proper training, policies, and procedures.
Involving everyone – General tips
Each of the above parties has its own role in achieving world-class reliability, and the ways they’ll accomplish that will vary by department. That said, there are some general principles that can be implemented in order to involve everyone in creating a reliable facility.
Set the goal
Before anything else happens, the organization should be fully committed to a set goal for reliability. This is often expressed as a percentage with a confidence level over a set period of time, such as 85% OEE with a 90% confidence level over the next 10 years.
When setting your goals, it’s generally best to aim for world-class reliability. While it may take some time to actually reach that goal, it’s still a good idea to set your sights high. Doing so can help your organization develop a culture of reliability as they all get involved in meeting that goal.
Finally, with your goal in mind, make sure it’s communicated to your entire organization. If you isolate your goal to just a handful of middle managers, they might find themselves at odds with other departments in your company that aren’t in the know. The idea is to get everyone on the same page, so make it an organization-wide announcement.
Implement TPM
Total productive maintenance, or TPM, is a great way to involve everyone in reliability since its whole approach is designed around having everyone play a role in keeping equipment well maintained. The goal is to reduce equipment maintenance costs by making the process as autonomous as possible, all while striving for continuous improvement.
The foundation of TPM is the principle of 5S, which stands for:
The main idea is that some of the above tasks—like shining and routine cleaning—can be performed by anyone, not just maintenance personnel, while some of the more involved tasks such as standardizing and sustaining processes fall upon upper management.
When implemented properly, TPM becomes something of a business culture, one which is definitely conducive toward reliability.
Facilitate reporting and communication
A major part of reliability is reducing friction between departments and personnel in your organization. The key to that is to facilitate reporting and communication. There should be no barriers to reporting faults or communicating needs since those types of barriers can prevent different departments from performing their roles well.
In addition, when communication is needed, but not necessarily intuitive, it should be encouraged. For instance, a maintenance planner who is scheduling a routine inspection on a specific piece of equipment may not think to alert operators to the need to lock it down for a half-hour, but doing so will make it much more likely that the inspection is performed on time, without resistance from the operations crew.
Another key to facilitate reporting is to make the process as simple as possible. Well-built CMMS software can help your team draw up custom reports containing information that is vital to sound reliability decision making. It also has the added benefit of improving production overall.
Training
When implementing new practices and trying to foster a culture of reliability in your organization, it will take a shift in the overall mindset of your workers, supervisors, and managers. That means each department will need training on best practices, new skills, how to use new software, and so forth.
Providing that training will require some time and resources, but it can make all the difference when it comes to involving everyone in meeting your reliability goals.