Reliability resources

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Much has been written about James Reason’s original Swiss Cheese Model described in his book Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Figure 1 is a basic representation of this model. Many today consider this model to be obsolete because of the evolving complexity of systems due to emerging technologies. Therefore, the linearity of failure expressed in this original model, is not as

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Is System’s Thinking Critical to Root Cause Analysis’s (RCA) Success? Put another way, can RCA be successful without the incorporation of system’s thinking? What prompted this question was that according to Drs. Leveson and Dekker in their 2014 paper Get To The Root of Accidents, systems thinking is not currently utilized in the application of RCA. In this paper they cite:

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Why Can’t Learning Teams (LT) and RCA Teams be Friends? A Little History About How I Came Across Learning Teams. A little over three years ago I was asked to speak at a conference that was entitled, Human Performance, Root Cause and Trending or HPRCT (great conference BTW and I encourage you to attend). This was a different world for me as I typically

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So what does it mean to be ‘safe’? Is a company ‘safe’ because they have not had an OSHA recordable injury in say over a one year period? Does that mean they will continue to be ‘safe’ in the next year? Does it mean they are at a higher risk of an incident in the near term, because they weren’t

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Originally published August 31, 2017.

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Since lubricating oil can oxidize, so can the base oil in grease.  When the grease oxidizes, it usually darkens; there is a build-up of acidic oxidation products, just as in other lubrications.  These products can have a destructive effect on the thickener, causing softening, oil bleeding, and leakage.  Because grease does not conduct heat easily, serious oxidation can begin at

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There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies, all of those who have done well under the old conditions, and luke-warm defenders in those who will do well under

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Does regulatory compliance with RCA guidelines ensure operational reliability? Operational Reliability involves the aggregation of Equipment, Process and Human Reliability methods and techniques. What is the difference between troubleshooting, problem solving and root cause analysis? Are the outcomes different when we use The 5-Whys, The Fishbone or a Logic Tree? Can deficiencies in our approach to RCA increase the risk

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The following article was published in Plant Services earlier this year with the title, “Don’t get stuck in reactive mode – The world of fantasy maintenance is calling you”. The alias of the author is Captain Unreliability, so all credit should go to the Captain :-).

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Author’s Note: I want to reiterate that this Series about reading the basic fracture surfaces, is for novices who often come into contact with such failed components. This Series is about the basics (101), and is intended to give readers an appreciation for the value of such ‘broken’ parts to an effective investigation/RCA. While this information will be rudimentary to

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RCA management is a structured and methodical approach to problem-solving, and it helps organizations learn from their mistakes and continuously improve their processes and systems to prevent recurrent issues. If managers knew what the overall power of a well-supported Root Cause Analysis (RCA) effort meant for their bottom line, they would be breaking down doors to implement the process. In

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This case history takes place in a packaging facility in Virginia. The packer on module E5 was checked for vibration integrity during a pre-machine care evaluation. A problem was detected in the folding arm gearbox. The frequency characteristics indicated a bearing was deteriorating. This seems very straight forward but let’s put the reality of the situation into the problem detected.