by Ken Bannister, MEch (UK), CMRP, MLE, Editor | Jan 3, 2021 | Asset Management, RAM Tools & Methods
A little over a year ago (Nov. 18, 2019), I wrote a newsletter column titled, “The Most Wonderful Time of Year” (see link below). In it, I highlighted how maintenance departments often go on shopping sprees with unspent budget dollars at the end of the...
by Bob Williamson, CMRP, CPMM, MIAM, Editor | Jan 2, 2021 | Maintenance Management, RAM Tools & Methods
Many of the tens of thousands of preventive maintenance (PM) and repair work instructions I’ve reviewed over the decades have been sorely lacking in details. That means they’ve left a lot to the mechanics’ discretion. At the same time, many production...
by Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP, Editor | Dec 5, 2020 | Asset Management, RAM Tools & Methods
At its core, reliability engineering is an analytical process. We’re the actuaries for the manufacturing-process industries. We analyze data to determine failure rates and mean times between/to failure (MTBF/MTTF) or mean time to repair (MTTR). We employ Weibull...
by Heinz Bloch, P.E., Editor | Dec 5, 2020 | Asset Management, RAM Tools & Methods, The Bloch Files
The above title doesn’t really disclose what I wanted to capture here: If your company is still repair-focused in late 2020, it will be no match for competitors whose conversion to being fully reliability-focused began over a decade ago, and is now complete....
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Dec 5, 2020 | RAM Tools & Methods
A number of products have come out of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) Department of Commerce project on Manufacturing Machinery Maintenance. Among them is a set of software tools that provide the ability to benchmark. For this article we’ll...
by Ken Bannister, MEch (UK), CMRP, MLE, Editor | Nov 28, 2020 | Asset Management, RAM Tools & Methods
Once a piece of equipment or a building has been built, installed, and commissioned, it is customary to hand over the caretaker keys to the maintenance department. Regrettably, in many organizations, this ends up being the first opportunity that maintenance team...
by Drew Troyer, CRE, CMRP, Editor | Nov 28, 2020 | RAM Tools & Methods, Workforce Issues
I’ve always been amazed and impressed by the knowledge and problem solving capability of plant-floor workers. Skilled and knowledgeable tradespersons and operators really know what’s going on at a site. And they’re an extremely valuable resource in our quest to run...
by Howard Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP | Nov 22, 2020 | RAM Tools & Methods
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, nist.gov) was formed in 1901, and is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. While most are only aware of their test instruments and device calibration being traceable to NIST, the Institute is actually a...
by Ken Bannister, MEch (UK), CMRP, MLE, Editor | Nov 20, 2020 | Lubrication Corner, RAM Tools & Methods
All bearings are destined to eventually fail. While ineffective lubrication practices are, arguably, the greatest contributing factor in such failures, the root cause(s) are rarely investigated due to production and maintenance turnaround demands. It’s...
by Sponsored by The RAM Review | Nov 19, 2020 | PODCAST, RAM Tools & Methods
HOST: Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP of MotorDoc LLC, and SMRP Government RelationsCO-HOST: Tom Moriarty, PE, CMRP, of Alidade MER, Inc., and Chair SMRP Government Relations OVERVIEWThe National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the U.S. Department of...
