Executive
If you believe that reliable operations will result if you just follow your maintenance program, then you might also believe a few falsehoods about reliability and maintenance. First is the falsehood that maintenance is all you need to achieve reliability. Read more “Conspiracy theory debunked – Maintenance leads to reliability”
Executive
Do you have a reliability department, a maintenance department, or a repair department?
Do you avoid failures? Do you avoid or mitigate their consequences?
Or do you wait for things to go wrong, then fix them? Read more “Do you have a reliability department?”
Asset Management
A well-designed maintenance program should eliminate the need to do condition assessments. These assessments are a form of condition monitoring, so why not include them in your proactive maintenance (PM) program? They are carried out to determine the current condition of an asset, determine if any remedial work is required, make an estimate of how long it will last, and forecast timing for eventually replacing the asset. Read more “Are condition assessments needed?”
Executive
Covid put many of our companies into a paralysis-like state. We’ve survived thanks to austerity measures, but we all know that we can’t cut our way to prosperity. As the recovery looms, we can act now to ensure sustained operational efficiency and organic growth post-pandemic.
Improving your maintenance program, as mundane as it may sound, can produce very high returns for very little investment. The first step – stop viewing maintenance as a cost to be minimized. Rather, view it as an ongoing investment in productive capacity. Read more “Surviving the recovery – part 3”
Executive
Are you ready to ramp back up?
Slowing down reduced supply and raised prices. Survival cost-cutting also put our companies into a state of Covid-induced paralysis. Like a person who is paralyzed – vital systems keep working so we survive, but growth, movement, and improvement all stop. I recall a soccer accident where my knee was damaged. I wasn’t paralyzed but that one leg was immobilized. It took me months to recover after the surgery was completed. The muscles in my leg had shrunk and strength needed to be rebuilt. In normal times, I’d have kept using the muscles and they would have strengthened, not shrunk. Read more “Surviving the recovery – Part 2”
Executive
Covid scared us all! Here you can see two Red Pandas with their version of a threatening response. When threatened, we will have one of three reactions – fight, flight, or freeze.
Our businesses also have similar responses. A few have fought – and they “pivoted.” Some fled – they folded up and went away. Many simply froze – they halted just about everything. If your business froze, then this article is for you. Read more “Surviving the recovery – part 1”
Condition Monitoring
Get it right on paper before attempting to computerize and automate.
The Work Management Process. One of the biggest uses of IIoT, ML, and AI in the industry (so far) is in the field of condition monitoring and forecasting times to failure. IIoT devices deployed on your equipment and systems, send exception signals (they use edge computing to filter out the vast majority of the data that merely tells you “all is well”) over some sort of network (usually wireless), then some sort of software interface produces a message for you to read (maybe triggers and work request, or sounds an alarm) and then act on. Read more “Look before you leap – part 3”
Condition Monitoring
Tech is needed, but do not focus only on the tool – implementation is key. For my musical aspirations that means the acquisition of a tool (the instrument), making sure it is set up correctly (tuning and positioning), investment in lessons and practice, using it regularly, and eventually, someone will tell me it sounds good. That’s my goal, and incidentally, I’m not there yet.
For technology, it’s much the same, but a bit more involved and a lot more expensive. There is the initial investment (the hardware and software). Then you invest in implementation (you need to set it up to do what you want it to do). Then you need the training to learn how to make it work those wonders you were promised. You can then “go live” and start using it to get value. Finally, but by no means lastly, you must keep using it correctly, or you won’t continue to get value. Read more “Look before you leap – part 2”
Condition Monitoring
Digital transformation for huge potential business benefit uses the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) combined. Like any technology or tool, they must be used correctly or the results you want will be elusive.
They are enablers of change, not drivers. The change you achieve is entirely up to you, the user. This is the first of a three-part series on the IIoT, AI, ML, and Digital Transformation. Read more “Look before you leap – part 1”
Business case
The benefits of proactive maintenance are the avoidance of consequences that occur when something fails. If you knew that you were going to suffer a heart attack and roughly when it would happen, wouldn’t you do something to avoid it? Or maybe you would just prepare better so the consequences of it occurring are minimized. Read more “The benefits of proactive maintenance”
