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Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

  • 1.  Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-19-2019 11:18 PM
    Today I was talking to a colleague about our responsibilities in our companies and the maintenance-reliability relationship topic... We talked about if reliability should be in the maintenance department, my opinion is that no, he said "yes", for me it must be a neutral entity because we are not only focusing equipment failure but all the items, we must be between maintenance and production, we can't be "judge and part", what do you think about it?

    (I'm trying to improve my english sorry for the mistakes)

    Best Regards from Mexico!

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    Diana Fabiola León Pérez
    Reliability Engineer

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  • 2.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-20-2019 06:48 AM
    From my experience. That being my department just recently got moved under the maintenance supervisor. I think it would have to do with supervisions working knowledge of Reliability and there buy in on the program. You need to have someone that can help promote the department.

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    David Downs
    Butler IN
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-20-2019 12:04 PM
    ​I agree with Diana.  Reliability must have a shared partnership with Production & Maintenance and everyone reports to the plant manager.  Reliability engineer looks both at manufacturing reliability as well as maintenance reliability and must remain neutral and unbiased.

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    Srecko Suvajac
    Reliability Engineer
    Downers Grove IL
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-20-2019 04:27 PM
    With good leaders in production and maintenance the organization structure does not matter.    To be clear though, reliability belongs to production.     Just like you own the reliability of your car, not the maintenance shop.    you decide when to bring your car in and what work to perform.    

    The trap with reliability reporting into maintenance is they WILL get sucked into reactive maintenance.    Further, they will fill in for supervisors and planners on vacation.    This is the main thing to guard against -- you must stay strategic.


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    Joseph Kuhn
    Lean Driven Reliability - Owner
    Alcoa
    Newburgh IN
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-21-2019 10:47 AM
    Hello Diana, and welcome!

    Reliability is everyone's business.  If we talk about Planning, Scheduling, Work Execution, MRO, and RCM, we need to realize that these five (5) processes are interdependent of one another.  If any one, or more, of these processes is not functioning fully to it's potential (lagging behind), the other processes will suffer to various degrees.​  There needs to be a "Work Execution Management" workflow that identifies the swimlanes (Roles/People involved) and all of the steps required.  Now, let's talk about Maintenance and Reliability.  Maintenance technicians need to have the proper skill set to be able to perform Corrective Maintenance and Preventive Maintenance.  This includes the skills for "precision maintenance". 
    The Maintenance Planner needs to have the skills to develop "Effective Work Procedures".  The Reliability Engineer needs to have the skills to perform data analysis - pulling data from the CMMS.  Production/Operations needs to be aware of all work orders in their backlog.  They own the equipment and should be prioritizing the maintenance work to be scheduled for their area.
    So, you can see that all of these roles need to be working together, communicating and functioning like a well oiled machine.

    ------------------------------
    Elton Ebersole CMRP, CPPM
    Senior Reliability Professional
    Allied Reliability Group Inc.
    Fairless Hills PA
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-26-2019 02:44 PM

    Diana, You're English is fine and a great question.

    Your question about who reports to who is always answered by your customers as we don't care.  You are all "widget" makers whether it's automobiles, power generation, consulting or whatever. You didn't state what yous (poor English) do but whatever it is you are all that. We all report to the Customers and have talents to achieve the company mission. A Mission and Vision statement that isn't just a bunch of fluffy words is the key to creating unified contributions and team spirit but more importantly support decision making and behaviors for every widget maker. I think Bill Gates vision was a computer in every home. Very simple but anyone employed at Microsoft could evaluate and relate all their actions to achieve that goal. There's another story about a janitor at NASA who was asked what his job was and he replied....I'm helping to put a man on the moon. No one should care whether they are in Maintenance or Reliability. We're all widget makers with different skill sets to contribute. See if your Mission and Vision guides all the contributors behavior choices or just well-intended.

     

    Mike Barkle,CMRP, CRL |Sr. Reliability Engineer

    757.229.2965 |804.239.8397 Mobile |

    mikebarkle@infralogix.com |  www.infralogix.com

     

    Infralogix Logo - Pres 1.jpg

    Reliability Maintenance Services

     

     




    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-21-2019 10:52 AM
    I'd like to add, the Reliability Engineer should NEVER, EVER, report to engineering or maintenance.  The best case I was involved with had a Global Reliability Director​ and all Plant Reliability Engineers reported to that person.  This was very successful!

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    Elton Ebersole CMRP, CPPM
    Senior Reliability Professional
    Allied Reliability Group Inc.
    Fairless Hills PA
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    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-21-2019 10:56 AM
    Virtually every reliability organization I have experience with has been part of the plant maintenance department.  In an ideal world, reliability would be a separate organization reporting to corporate leadership allowing it to interact with plant production and maintenance on an equal level.  Even the most enlightened plant level management is held accountable for short term production and cost targets and those goals will end up taking priority over the longer term cost avoidance gains from reliability and mechanical integrity.  This is "short sighted" as the only way to get to "best in class" performance is to have "best in class" reliability performance.  

    Edward Spyhalski, PE/CMRP
    Virginia, USA

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    Edward Spyhalski PE/CMRP
    Deployment Leader
    Advansix
    Chester VA
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-21-2019 12:00 PM
    There are pitfalls with every org structure for the reliability team.   The common ones:

    Maintenance - the reliability team will get sucked into the urgent.   They will also be asked to fill in for planners and supervisors during vacations and heath issues.
    Production - same as maintenance pitfalls.
    Separate but equal group - now you have 3 voices, 3 agendas being worked and the only tie breaker is the plant manager.    Less gets done due to this bottleneck.   This will have at least as much waste as the previous 2.    Alignment is a MAJOR issue.    Most get fooled with this because it looks good on paper.   I've NEVER seen it work well in practice due primarily to 3 agendas.    My view is as a plant manager, VP and Director of Global Reliability -- not a consultant.    

    May Advice -- Production owns reliability.    You are fooling yourself if you think otherwise.    They own how the equipment is ran, improvements, and how it is maintained.    They control the outages and the approval for all changes.    Maintenance is an adviser - Production is the decider.    How can we hold the production leader accountable for reliability if they don't have the resources or set their priorities?     If your worried about short term thinking, make them sign a contract on how they are to me guided and have open dialog about grievances.    Organizations that struggle with reliability are trying to do so as an independent effort  - this fails.    It needs to be how we work -- Production is the correct answer from my 32 years living it.   

    Read the reliability blogs for obstacles for reliability deployments.   They consistently state "upper management support and decision making".    The way I found to fix this is having them report to operations.    Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is  insanity right!   

    Go for the win -- challenge production leaders to get CMRPs and manage short and long term.

    ------------------------------
    Joseph Kuhn
    Lean Driven Reliability - Owner
    Alcoa
    Newburgh IN
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    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-22-2019 02:40 PM
    ​Another great question Diana and one I have thought about often.  Lots of good answers talking through the subject.  Just a few of my quick thoughts.

    Reliability is connected to all functions in manufacturing form HR, purchasing, storeroom, maintenance, engineering, management and  operations.  I've always said and have seen proved out that our reliability today is a sum of the actions of all the people in those different areas since a plant was installed.  Most people don't think about past decisions affecting tomorrows or future reliability but it happens all the time.  The law of the harvest - reap what you sow.

    Here are some short examples.  When the designer engineer decides not to put proper filtration on a lube system, future equipment reliability will be affected. When the purchasing specifications and vendor selection choses the lowest cost without considering design for reliability, future reliability will be compromised.  When the installers do not remove pipe stress from the original installation, equipment reliability will be the result.  When a manager decides that he will not pay for a certain PM inspection and that occurred 5-10 years ago will impact reliability today.  Decisions have consequences and bad decisions have victims.  The bad part is many of the bad decisions will have the consequences fall on the next man up.

    As far as where reliability management belongs, I'm not sure there is a perfect answer as reliability encompasses so many areas.  However, the most important thing I have experienced is to have the right support from the top down to execute reliability activities no matter which department it may fall under.  The priority/philosophy of the decision makers and stakeholders is what will get done no matter the reporting structure.   I'll take a reliability dept under maint that has strong support over a stand alone reliability dept. with no support every time. 

    I do believe that maintenance and reliability are closely connected.  You can't have reliability without good maintenance but you can have maintenance without good reliability.  Another words, reliability affects how well we execute maintenance.


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    Randy Riddell, CMRP, PSAP, CLS
    Reliability Manager
    Essity
    Cherokee AL
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    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-23-2019 04:47 PM
    Reliability is like planning if they are involved in the day to day they are not concentrating on their jobs. It is real easy when you are in maintenance to concentrating on the loudest emergency not necessarily the most important thing. Maintenance gets pulled in crazy directions I know from experience. The reliability and planning need to be working toward the big picture goals. 
    Maintenance and Reliability have to work together and in some cases it can work with maintenance in charge. Another example is sometimes maintenance can report to production and it works. In most cases however it will not work because, the needs of the day will get in the way of the need of the equipment.

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    VERNON WELCH
    Athens AL
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-23-2019 07:45 AM

    Good question, very difficult to answer. At one time I studied theory and design of organizations and found various ways to think it through. One that I find most useful is the five business systems to any organization. The biggest point is that the five take various form and by their dynamic attempt to maximize themselves by undermining the others. For example, place various reliability roles in the wrong place and they will fail to thrive. Also, with it you will discover that the different roles of reliability and maintenance do not fall within any one of the five.

    In other words, how you structure, "all depends." You can get a full discussion of the five subsystems and a thought process to structure M&R in your organizations in Chapter Nine of my book, "Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success." The pdf-book is free to download at https://analytics4strategy.com/mntcreinvented



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    Richard Lamb
    Analytics4Strategy.com
    Houston TX
    832-710-0755
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    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 09-04-2019 02:29 PM
    Congrats and good job on your book.  I read through part of it even though the financial stuff is not my wheelhouse.  ​Connecting the business to all the parts and pieces is very good.  Here are couple thoughts of mine on this big topic.

    • Workload based budgeting -- really like the concept but I've not experienced that in the real world.  Only here is your budget, so do what maintenance you can with it.  That leads to all kinds of risk taking, much of it back firing.  There is a disconnect to the negative impact to that line of thinking.
    • The folks at the top I am sure understand on some level how maintenance impacts the bottom line but I'm not sure many really understand or believe the maintenance/reliability function and impact it can have.  If they did, better decisions and investments would be made.  I have seen some organizations where that core belief is very good and others where it is not.  Simple investments in the right areas (maint & reliability) can yield big returns.  I can usually get about a 10-15X return easily on predictive maintenance; for every 100K spent get around 1-1.5 mil in return.  The problem is many in leadership don't understand it or don't believe in it.  One reason is due to the fact they don't count cost avoidance or forward thinking reliability.  I've been told if it didn't happen then you can't count it so another words it has to wreck then we can do corrective measures to prevent and we can count cost elimination from the failure.  Maintenance is viewed as a cost center not a profit center and therefore must be cut, not invested in.

    While I understand the maintenance & reliability piece well, I've probably overrun my accounting expertise so I'll stop.

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    Randy Riddell, CMRP, PSAP, CLS
    Reliability Manager
    Essity
    Cherokee AL
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    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 09-05-2019 10:16 AM

    Randy does not see the dual dimensional budgeting process anywhere because so few people know the easy skills to build the super tables that make legitimate budget-variance so easy to do. Today, Thurs Sept 5, I'm presenting a webinar explaining how to build such tables. The slides to the webinar will be made available to download at https://analytics4strategy.com/train-builddatatables

    The same techniques are used to build budget and variance due to workload and due to resources to do the workload. First, with the techniques we determine the workload to work groups on which the budget would be built and variance with aggregation in the super table. Thence aggregation techniques are used to do the variance calculations (https://analytics4strategy.com/scrtbdgtcntrlmntcopxdmly ). The variance calculations are then built into a super table and run each month.

    Calculation of variances:

    ·       Variance due to completed workload = (Actual-Budget Job Count)*(Budget Cost per Job)

    ·       Variance due to cost of completed workload = (Actual-Budget Cost per Job" times)*(Actual Job Count)

    ·       Total variance = (Actual-Budget)

    The webinar will not demonstrate the case of budget super tables-but does the techniques that would be used. However, to demonstrate how to build super tables, the webinar presents an example of finding outliers among the work orders--as part of the variance process.




    Original Message


  • 15.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 08-26-2019 08:29 AM
    I was a Maintenance Engineer implementing Reliability work within Maintenance.  The only time I was successful was when my manager supported Reliability because he was also a Reliability engineer at one time.  The moment he left the department, I lost credibility and momentum.  I think Reliability should be a separate entity from Maintenance but must have an influence in maintenance activities.  Buy in would be great, but without that, if the site agrees on the org structure and department responsibilities where Reliability looks at the strategy while Maintenance executes, it should also work.  We can't improve site culture overnight and not everyone believes in Reliability, so the latter is my preference.

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    Zandra Lumanglas P. Eng.
    Fort Saskatchewan AB
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    Original Message


  • 16.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 09-02-2019 11:16 AM
    I agree with those who assert that a successful reliability effort must involve both maintenance and production.  Further to this, a concept of "equipment ownership" needs to be in place; otherwise, it's difficult to properly administer safe equipment isolation and "transfer of ownership" of a portion of the process from production to maintenance (and back again, when maintenance is complete).

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    Terence Easterwood
    Associate Director - Utilities & Energy Services
    Texas A&M University
    Bryan TX
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    Original Message


  • 17.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 09-02-2019 11:48 AM
    This is a subject, not of reliability, maintenance and operations, but the discipline of the theory and design of complex organizations.

    In that organization design is often treated as the exercise of common sense and wisdom, it is no wonder that most solutions flop and beget another round of opinions for structuring a given operation.

    Once again I refer all to the Chapter titled, "Structuring Five Business Systems" in the free pdf-book titled, Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success." Download at https://analytics4strategy.com/mntcreinvented

    I have to warn all. The concept presented in the chapter does not offer an easy, obvious solution. To work the concepts requires some hard abstract thinking.



    Original Message


  • 18.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 09-04-2019 10:17 PM
    Hi Diana, 

    My opinion respect you question is the next: The reliability is a auxiliar function of any maintenance department but at same time reliability is a auditor of great part of the maintenance process and even operational process, if you see this in my way, reliability have to be at the same organizational level of maintenance and operations. Reliability have to be involve in every process upstream because you could use reliability methodologies to resolve problems or find weak points in your productive process or just to calculate the reliability in you operaros or maintainers or even just to calculate reliability parameters for a new capital project.

    I worked in the Oil&Gas industry for 12 years and it was the only way it really work, and that was after change the organizational structure for 4 times in 12 years.

    Just thing about maintenance would be supervised by the operations manager, is the same case to reliability. If reliability is supervised by maintenance manager this one could misunderstand the real function of reliability.

    I hope this help you.

    Regards

    Yorman

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    Yorman Zambrano
    Kissimmee FL
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    Original Message


  • 19.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 10-14-2019 06:50 AM
    Lots of great answers, but let me offer another take:

    It does not matter!

    The reason I say that is that reliability simply can not be delivered by any single function in an organisation. To achieve reliability you need production, maintenance, engineering, projects etc. all to work towards that common goal of a reliable plant.

    I have seen so many people and organisation waste so much time on these kinds of turf wars. Don't do it. use your precious time and effort to build bridges between production, maintenance and engineering. Use that effort to jointly develop and run a defect elimination program, to do RCA's. To increase people's knowledge and understanding of reliability.

    You just need someone to take the lead and collaborate with others to make a difference.

    Be that someone!

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    Erik Hupje
    Shell Australia

    My personal site: http://www.roadtoreliability.com
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    Original Message


  • 20.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 10-14-2019 07:50 AM

    Erick is right; that reliability simply cannot be delivered by any single function. However, the "common goal speech" won't get us there either. The relationship is created by applying the theory and principles of organization design. Unfortunately, very few SMEs in reliability and maintenance are schooled in the field, and common sense and intuition as the alternative typically miss the target.

    In grad school, I studied theory and design of organizations and built my own integration of the many ways to think it through. The one that I find most useful is the five business systems to any organization. The biggest point is that the five take various forms and by their dynamic attempt to maximize themselves by undermining the others.

    Maintenance and reliability entail many pieces in the form of functions and roles. If any are inappropriately placed in the designed organization, some will diminish or eliminate others. How you make the determination is done by thinking reliability and maintenance through with respect to the five subsystems and then structuring the parts based on which subsystem they belong.

    The theory of five subsystems is also good to determine why your maintenance and reliability operations are failing to perform as you expect them to. As you classify the behavior of the parts, as is, you will discover why things are not working as you expected-e.g., you discover that one of those chickens is a fox.

    You can get a full discussion of the five subsystems and a representative thought process to structure M&R in your organizations in Chapter Nine of the book, "Maintenance Reinvented and Business Success." The pdf-book is free to download at https://analytics4strategy.com/mntcreinvented

    Educational website: https://analytics4strategy.com




    Original Message


  • 21.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 10-14-2019 07:59 AM
    Diana

    An excellent point.  The answer - 'it depends.'

    We generally see the reliability function placed within an organization based upon how the organization's leadership views the function of reliability engineering - in reference to physical asset management and not product. 

    In some larger organizations you will see reliability engineering set up as a corporate 'stand-a-lone' answerable to the C-suite.  In these cases the reliability organization is not auditing or looking backwards, but directly involved in all aspects of the company when reviewing new production equipment (as an example), performing RCFA investigations (sometimes along side the safety department), or reviewing methods of extending equipment life or the impacts of production throughput.  They don't necessarily have authority, they are, instead, an internal consultant/engineering department.

    In many companies the reliability department falls under operations.  Generally, they function as an engineering group to review methods of increasing throughput, reduce waste, and other benefits based upon demand.  While they will perform other functions (as above), they will often be focused on capacity.

    In a majority of companies reliability engineering is completely misunderstood and they are assigned to maintenance and end up doing functions such as planning and scheduling, performing PdM tasks, etc.  In these cases, some decision maker has said 'we need reliability' but has misunderstood the purpose.  However, the training involved in reliability engineering has positive benefits.

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    Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP
    2019 Immediate Past SMRP Chair, 2019 Govt Relations Smart Grid, Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Working Group Chair, and
    President
    MotorDoc LLC
    Lombard, Illinois
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    Original Message


  • 22.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 10-14-2019 08:16 AM
    To make my point on top of Howard's comment. I previously posted the method of five subsystems that must be appropriate--or bad things Man!!

    My experience is that the variations described are largely formulated on common sense, intuition, opinion and copy-cat rather than be scholarly in our design. None of us would accept that as how to do our engineering work, nor would our fellow engineers allow us to.

    Richard G. Lamb, PE, CPA
    Houston, Texas
    Educational website: https://analytics4strategy.com




    Original Message


  • 23.  RE: Maintenance-Reliability Relationship

    Posted 10-25-2019 11:13 AM
    Great responses from all others...
    It all depends on the size of the facility, nature of operations, type of assets and how the leadership views and leverages Reliability.
    In my view (in the context of asset intensive continuous process industry), have ​seen such combinations at different stages of the organizations, with varied results. Reliability needs to be owned by all functions of the organization.
    Plant Production owns the Assets and it performance (value to the business).  
    One of the models i'd seen was Maintenance reporting to Plant Production (for alignment and close coordination between Production, Maintenance Planning and Execution) with Reliability being a centralized, independent function and reporting the Site Head.
    Thanks

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    Sundar Naranammalpuram P.
    Navi Mumbai
    Maharashtra
    India
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    Original Message