Expanding the P-F Curve

Maintenance has always seemed simple to be a simple process to me, understand what you want your system to do, determine the ways it can fail, and develop a series of tasks to mitigate the effects of each failure.

Develop a plan and do it. Some like to believe it's common sense and others, well they have a difficult time getting their arms around the concept of a sound maintenance strategy.

Several years ago I was instructing the principals of the Potential Failure Curve to a new class of RCM Blitz Facilitators and in this class I had one of those students that every teacher loves. The student who will not stop asking questions until he is 100% sure he understands the material. In this particular session we were discussing the importance of sticking to the determined interval of each on-condition maintenance task and to illustrate this point I used an entire 8 foot wide white board and drew a 6 foot long straight line that then dropped into a P-F curve. As with any P-F curve I labeled the y-axis resistance to failure, and the x-axis as time. Along the x-axis I put one year for every six inches with point P being at 12 years. To make sure my student with all the questions understood the point I was about to make I asked him, if this were the P-F curve for the bearing on the centrifugal pump in our example, how often would you perform vibration analysis?

He answered correctly stating "Every month"!

Being the RCM instructor/facilitator that I am, I then asked why?

"Because we don't know when point P will occur, it could happen at any time along that long line you just drew".

Correct again! Now a more important question, could we ever expect to see such a long time line between installation and potential failure, if so how do we accomplish that?

Answer: "Yes but only if you first understand your failure modes and use the tools necessary to eliminate them"!

The above discussion resulted in what I refer to today as the complete P-F curve that includes the I-P interval and the importance of Reliability Tools and Precision maintenance. If you are interested in increasing the interval between installation and failures contact Allied Reliability and sign up for RCM Blitz training.

The Complete P-F curve will be presented at IMC2008 complete with a case study.

Reliability is Green

Anyone who reads newspapers or magazines, or watches even a small amount of TV is aware of the movement to be Green. Nearly every company in the world wants to be seen as Green, we all want to produce more and use less energy.

Those of us in the world of manufacturing reliability have been Green all along; some of us have recognized that for years, we just have never waved the flag as providers of green services. The facts are however, equipment that is reliable uses less energy. A byproduct of more reliable equipment is equipment that uses less energy and as a result, Reliability is Green!

In recognition of this we can now begin to ask the questions, how much less energy does reliable equipment use, and what is the potential savings to our customers?

Allied Reliability has assembled a team of top industry professionals to research and publish the potential Green benefits of equipment reliability. Look for the results of these findings and case studies at upcoming conferences and magazines!

RCM Facilitation

The job of a RCM Facilitator is one that takes a substantial amount of patience and discipline. The structure of the RCM process requires discipline, if you want good results you must have the discipline to stick to the process leading your team through each step and pulling them back when human nature encourages them to jump from step 3 to step 7. Reminding the team each time they take a new leap to be patient, the reward comes in time as you learn the process and truely understand the value of each step and the consequences of shor cutting the process.

As humans, nature drives us to strive for continuous improvement, from the day we are born, as we learn to crawl we can't wait to walk, as we learn to walk we can't wait to run. As we grow from children to into adults we also learn there are times when it's approprate to run and there also times when it is dangerous to run and severe consequences for doing so.

RCM Blitz Facilitator training and mentoring delivers the skillset required to fully understand the value of Reliability Centered Maintenance, why we need to perform each step and the consequences of short cutting a proven structured process. The only place licensed in the world to provide RCM Blitz Facilitator training is at Allied Reliability. Contact Allied to train and certify your RCM facilitators.

Good RCM is all about your knowledge

Reliability Centered Maintenance - It's a seven step process so it should be very simple, just follow the seven steps, do a little RCM Blitz and the next thing you know the reliability of your equipment, people and business will improve over night.

I wish were that simple. Seems like every time I hold a RCM Facilitator Training event I have someone in class that believes that he/she can run right back to work and start facilitating perfect RCM events without ever being mentored through an RCM analysis.

My answer is always the same, "You're free to try it out and good luck". Facilitating a RCM analysis takes a little more than understanding the seven steps of RCM. The skill set of a RCM facilitator is three fold;

- Knowledge of RCM

- Knowledge of Failure Modes

- Knowledge of Group Dynamics - You have to be able to manage the team and lead the process!

If you lacking in one of these areas your RCM analysis will suffer and the results from your RCM analysis will suffer as well.

At Allied Reliability we are the only company in the world to offer RCM Blitz Facilitator training and mentoring. Lead by RCM Blitz creator Doug Plucknette, all of our RCM Blitz Facilitators and Trainers have achieved certification. If your people arn't certified, your not doing RCM Blitz!

The Future of RCM Blitz

Reliability Centered Maintenance, there are almost as many methodologies as there are letters in the alphabet. I have always thought RCM Blitz was the best choice when it came to RCM, fast, efficient and effective. A process that is both thorough and easy to use. The problem has been for the past eight years how do you deliver this message as a one man show?

Well, today I'm pleased to announce that RCM Blitz will no longer be a one man show. My company Reliability Solutions, Inc. today signed into agreement a exclusive license agreement with Allied Reliability and in the very near future Allied Reliability will begin offering training and facilitation in RCM Blitz. As part of this agreement I will begin working for Allied Reliability building the capability to deliver RCM Blitz to the masses!

In the mean time we can still be reached at the same contact locations listed at ReliabilitySolution.com. We look forward to continuing this blogg and educating the world on the benefits of RCM Blitz!

Instant RCM

I don't know about you, but I always like a good training course. A dynamic instructor, well thought out and well laid out training materials, solid real life training examples and interactive class examples. Combine all of these things and your now attending a course where you can really learn how to apply a structured process and improve your business.

When I started Reliability Solutions, Inc. and designed the RCM Blitz process and RCM Facilitator training modules, we worked hard to meet the above listed criteria. I wanted to ensure that the people we trained in RCM Blitz understood the process and were able to apply the techniques learned in training back at the workplace. As a result, the people to elected the attend RCM Blitz facilitator training would in turn become successful RCM facilitators.

Over the past five years, I have been approached several times by companies wanting me to put my courses on CD and offer them on line for a reduced price. You all know the gimmick "The Instant RCM Training CD - for a one time price $599.95 you can now purchase the complete RCM Blitz training series just send us your credit card and we'll send you the CD!" "Complete the slides on our CD and you'll soon be doing RCM all on your own!"

I have some better advice, if you believe you can learn RCM without formal instruction and mentoring, save your money, buy a book on RCM and read it. You'll save yourself five hundred and fifty dollars and have the same probability of success.

If you really want to learn to become a certified RCM facilitator, attend a RCM Facilitator Training class, sign up to be mentored through a couple of RCM analyses and learn RCM the right way. Companies with successful RCM efforts, invest in RCM training and certification and as a result they experience the benefits delivered from a proven methodology.

Contact Reliability Solutions, Inc. today and learn about RCM Blitz Facilitator Training and Certification!

RCM Blitz - Returning to the RCM Foundation of Nowlan and Heap

My goodness there is a number of different RCM methodologies in the marketplace today. Most claim to do something more in less time for less money. Some claim to a lot less RCM for less time and less money. There is even one process that claims RCM means resource consuming monster! At Reliability Solutions, Inc., the only thing we have ever claimed is RCM Blitz was designed in a way that companies can do Reliability Centered Maintenance on critical assets and upon implementing the RCM tasks they will get a return on the money they invested in RCM!

We don't sell our methodology using fear, fancy, overpriced software or promises that we invented something better or faster. RCM Blitz sells itself as our satisfied customers speak at conferences and open their doors to magazines such as Uptime and MRO Today for articles on how RCM Blitz helped their business!

If you'd like to know more about RCM Training, or RCM Facilitator Training contact me at Reliability Solutions, Inc.!