by Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor | May 22, 2020 | Plant Operations, Safety Matters
As manufacturing ramps up amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as manufacturers return from China, as we look toward the road ahead with new technologies, there are bound to be challenges along the way. Responding to the need for epic-proportion health and safety...
by Heinz Bloch, P.E., Editor | May 16, 2020 | Plant Operations, The Bloch Files
A retired reliability professional and I have received a contract for a book with the tentative title “New Approaches to Compressor Technology.” Our mandate is to alert readers to notable cost-effectiveness and reliability-improvement trends that have...
by Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP, T.A. Cook/Accenture, Editor | May 3, 2020 | Asset Management, Newsletter Column, Plant Operations
Is your organization implementing solutions that seem to be looking for problems? It’s a fair question. There’s plenty of talk in asset-management circles these days about Digital Transformation, Digital Manufacturing, the Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0,...
by Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor | May 2, 2020 | Plant Operations, Workforce Issues
Have COVID-19, the global economic downturn, self-quarantine measures, and shelter-in-place directives taken a bite out of your business? Few, if any sectors, have escaped the turmoil. Countless employees and contractors across the industrial landscape have been...
by Heinz Bloch, P.E., Editor | Apr 26, 2020 | Newsletter Column, Plant Operations, Safety Matters
It has been 56 years since I changed from a career path in high-speed machinery to employment in the petrochemical and refining industries. Over the course of my work, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of value-adders. Conversely, I also have dealt with people...
by Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor | Apr 25, 2020 | Learning from Mistakes, Plant Operations
What is about to happen could be a tsunami of reshoring critical manufacturing. Numerous supply chains have been interrupted by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. But, more important, many people at all levels of the business world have realized that our critical supply...
by Heinz Bloch, P.E., Editor | Apr 17, 2020 | Plant Operations, The Bloch Files, Workforce Issues
Whenever we see the acronym “RAM” used here, most of us know that “R” stands for “Reliability” and “M” stands for “Maintenance.” But, while the letter “A” in the acronym formally stands for “Availability,” to some of us, it also serves as a reminder that reliable...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Apr 4, 2020 | Plant Operations, Workforce Issues
In football, a team’s quarterback and backfield typically receive the most attention. They handle the ball and get it where it’s going or intercept it. Little attention is given to the linemen who have one square yard of responsibility. And, in most cases, how...
by Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor | Mar 21, 2020 | Plant Operations, RAM Tools & Methods
Operator involvement in equipment care is a fundamental of reliability improvement and offers many benefits, starting with the fact that there are more equipment operators than maintainers. Other benefits come from the fact that: ♦ Operators are closer to the...
by Heinz Bloch, P.E., Editor | Mar 15, 2020 | Newsletter Column, Plant Operations, The Bloch Files
Roughly 25 years ago, a respected colleague, Fred Caspari, had just retired from his reliability-management position with LUSC (Large U.S. Company). Two other colleagues and I heard him speak on “Abandoning the World-Class Maintenance Approach at a Major Multinational...
