Articles

Reading Time: 6 minutes

The best organizations in the world are not the ones with all the systems and procedures, all the acronyms, or even the most up to date technical solutions; instead they are the ones that are best at identifying and solving problems. Want more success? Want a better maintenance effort? Then get better at finding and solving problems.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Root Cause Analysis has always been dear to my heart. The procedure involved in finding the root causes and addressing them have intrigued me greatly as it involves using all your data gathering and cognitive skills. In the past, it was a bit difficult to properly perform RCAs since it usually meant jumping around different types of software…

Reading Time: 4 minutes

If you are like most people who work in a manufacturing or process plant, you have a plan for your day when you arrive in the morning. As soon as you walk through the gate, you are hit with the equipment failures from the night before. You immediately spring into action to help find parts, drawings, millwrights, fitters and anything

Reading Time: 9 minutes

When facilitating a Root Cause Analysis (RCA), the proper questioning process will make or break the effectiveness of the entire analysis. When we hear of the 5-Why’s as a valid RCA approach, is simply asking ‘Why?’ 5x good enough….or IS IT JUST OK?

Reading Time: 17 minutes

Does procedural and/or regulatory compliance with RCA guidelines ensure Operational Reliability?  Does it ensure improved Safety? Operational Reliability involves the aggregation of Equipment, Process and Human Reliability methods and techniques. What is the difference between troubleshooting, problem solving and ‘RCA’?  Are the outcomes different when we use The 5-Whys, The Fishbone or a Logic Tree/Causal Factor Type Tree?  Can deficiencies

Reading Time: 3 minutes

First, a question: What is the difference between a child hitting a pitch and the ball breaking a neighbor’s window and the child throwing the ball at the window and breaking it?  One was a mistake and the other was a conscience act. In maintenance the first act, a mistake is a learning experience and requires little or no action

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Recently, most of our concerns stem around getting stuff done faster but wanting the same quality result. For instance, when loading a web page, we expect it to be loaded in one second and use the next five seconds to browse the content and find what we’re looking for. Let’s take a step back and think about loading a webpage

Reading Time: 8 minutes

In recent years, “Defect Elimination” has become a hot topic in the reliability world. But what exactly does defect elimination mean? How does it differ from other maintenance practices? Is it more than just a new way to describe planned and predictive maintenance? This article will seek to answer these questions in a very practical manner.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

We have all heard the term Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and we all likely interpret its meaning in a different fashion.  This is the primary reason we see for the ineffective use of “RCA”, lack of communication or miscommunication amongst the users.  If we are all using various forms of RCA, then when we compare our results we are not

Reading Time: 4 minutes

When issues arise within a company, there are a number of ways to problem solve. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is an effective method to identify and solve problems in business by determining the underlying inefficiencies or imperfections and taking the necessary steps to address them to prevent the problem from arising again. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) can be an effective

Reading Time: 4 minutes

RCA’s are traditionally viewed as ‘hindsight’ (reactive) analysis… But what about the chronic failures (that happen daily), the near-misses and the unacceptable risks (identified using risk tools like FMEA)? Left unchecked, these types of events often lead to one-time sporadic failures (the triggered ones). How to Create a Proactive RCA Culture From a holistic RCA perspective… “What are the top

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In order to maximize the impact and objectives of Reliability Center Inc. worldwide, we are now publicly offering our Affiliate Program to new applicants! Our PROACT methodology provides a balanced step-by-step method to teach and train your clients how to maximize the ROI of their RCAs. Paired with our courses, consulting, and various software offerings – the potential for impact