Reliability Academy

The 5 WHYs approach is a quick and easy way to do RCA. You simply ask ‘WHY’ five times… And you supposedly arrive at the root cause of the problem. You don’t need much training to learn it. And you don’t use complicated processes or software. “It’s just what we need!” 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲? The biggest issue with 5 WHYs is that people focus on the tool rather than the process and outcome. You must understand that getting to the bottom of a major failure can be simple. And at the same time, analysing a minor failure could actually turn out to be technically complex. See, complex problems can have multiple root causes. And the 5 WHYs might make it seem like there's only one. At the same time, people might also assume that if a failure had a low impact, the root cause can be easily identified. So, there’s a real danger of stopping at symptom-level causes without getting to the true root. And that’s where we go wrong. 𝐓𝐨 𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟓 𝐖𝐇𝐘𝐒 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞. Instead, use the 5 WHY technique for what appear to be ‘simple’ failures on the surface. But adopt a more rigorous technique if your initial WHY shows that there is a lot more to the story than you initially thought. What’s your experience with the 5 WHY’s? Have you used it to do RCA? Let us know in the comments. #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy

Don’t you think it’s strange? The principles of effective maintenance have been known for decades! But despite that... Thousands of industrial plants around the world STILL struggle with low reliability and high maintenance costs. Only few organisations have really achieved high reliability and sustained top quartile maintenance costs. The main reasons for this poor performance are simple: → 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐱, and organisations lose focus of what actually matters i.e. the ‘basics’ of planning & scheduling, preventive maintenance and defect elimination. → 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 of these basics and often don’t engage external consultants because of the high costs involved. → 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 the basics effectively. And as a result don’t achieve the performance improvements they’re looking for. These 3 reasons undermine profitability and long-term success of many industries. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐲. In our 20+ years in the industry, we've learned that most companies can reduce maintenance costs by up to 20%... and reduce maintenance tasks whilst improving reliability. This means most asset-intensive companies have an opportunity to reduce total operating costs by 4% to 12% through adopting better maintenance practices. How do you do this? You simply implement the 4 elements of the Road to Reliability Framework. -Planning & Scheduling -Preventive Maintenance -Defect Elimination -Leadership and Culture And this is exactly what we help our clients with. #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy

Thank you Freddy for your kind words! We're happy to see that our course on Maintenance Planning & Scheduling has provided you with valuable insights and practical skills that you can apply directly to improve your organisation's maintenance operations. It's great to know that you've recognised the crucial role that planning and scheduling play in improving reliability and productivity. Keep up the excellent work!. Your efforts are not only improving operations but also setting a positive example for your peers. Thank you for sharing your experiences, and best of luck with your ongoing projects! #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy

The Road to Reliability is like winning a game of soccer— Just as soccer teams train rigorously to achieve victory… Your maintenance team must also train rigorously to achieve peak reliability and performance. And behind every winning team… 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡. →A coach who motivates and brings out the best in their players. →A coach who knows when to step back and analyse the overall situation. →A coach who crafts winning strategies and guides their teams to success. You can’t find championship teams without a seasoned coach orchestrating their moves from behind the scenes. 👉The same applies in the field of maintenance and reliability. If you really want to escape the vicious cycle of reactive maintenance and finally improve your reliability… Having a skilled coach on the side to guide your team through the complexities of maintenance and reliability can make all the difference. And this is ESPECIALLY helpful if you’ve been stuck in a reactive maintenance for years. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫, 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦'𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡. But what if you’re not ready to coach your team? You call the Reliability Academy to help you train and coach your team! Have you ever worked with a coach before? What’s your experience? #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy

If Chat GPT was your Reliability Engineer... You would have fired it a long time ago. Now, unless you have been living in a cave, you will have seen and read plenty about ChatGPT. And chances are, you’ve already used it. About 100 million people have apparently. Including me, and I was, and still am, impressed with what it can do. There is also a lot of angst out there about AI taking over jobs. I guess that is happening in some fields already. And in our space of maintenance & reliability it will also happen... eventually But ChatGPT is a long way off from being your next hire for the role of Reliability Engineer or Maintenance Engineer. And if you had hired it, you would have fired it pretty soon after (or at least you should have). You see, ChatGPT is pretty good at generating convincing sounding responses when it comes to maintenance and & reliability topics... ... it can give you a list of failure modes for certain types of equipment ... I have seen some people use it to generate PM check lists But all too often, what it writes is flawed. Just wrong or completely invented (apparently it is normal that AI's suffer from so-called 'hallucinations', we call it something else when humans do it) The problem is that ChatGPT perpetuates our own bad practices. For example, if you look at the check lists it generates, these are full of statements like "inspect and clean fuel pump" Inspect for what? I know most checklists in industry are full of phrases like these, but they shouldn't be. If you ask a technician to inspect a piece of equipment, be specific about: -what they should inspect for -what the acceptable limits are -and what they should do if the limits are exceeded You see similar issues with failure modes, or when you ask it to explain certain maintenance and reliability concepts. In short, ChatGPT and AI are going to change the way we work. No doubt. They will be massively helpful to analyse huge amounts of data whether that ...

Reliability culture... how’s yours? Leadership drives change. But culture sustains it. Without the right culture, your hard-won improvements will simply erode over time. And before you know it, you’ll be back in that vicious cycle of reactive maintenance and low reliability. So ask yourself... how’s your reliability culture? To help you answer that question, I created the Reliability Culture Ladder. It’s a model to help you assess your reliability culture based on 5 levels of maturity: - Toxic - Reactive - Effective - Proactive - Enlightened This model leverages Professor Patrick Hudson’s Safety Culture Ladder. Throughout my own career I found the Safety Culture Ladder useful, practical, easy to understand, and easy to use. And its widespread use around the globe suggests that I am not the only one who thinks that. Reliability and its improvement have many similarities to safety, and we can learn a lot from analysing the advances in safety across industries. So, the Safety Culture Ladder formed a great basis for a reliability maturity model. But that begs the question: What makes up a reliability culture? That’s where the 4 Elements of a Reliability Culture come in, which I’ll talk more about in my next post. But first... Let us know in the comments what you think your reliability culture is and why. #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy PS if you don't want to wait and want to read more about the Reliability Culture Ladder and the 4 Elements of Reliability Culture then check out the link in the first comment.

Make sure your Maintenance Planner is not buried in admin and gets enough time out in the plant. #planning #scheduling #planningandscheduling #workmanagement #maintenance

🌟 Exciting Opportunity for Maintenance Professionals! 🌟  Are you struggling to afford high-quality maintenance training?  Lack of training could be why you’re missing out on lucrative job opportunities in maintenance and reliability!  If that’s you, then we have something special for you!  🎓 The Reliability Academy Scholarship Program! 🎓  Apply for a scholarship today and get 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝟕𝟓% 𝐨𝐟𝐟 the original price!  🚀 Why should you apply for this scholarship?  ✅ Get 75% off our course fees.  ✅ Get lifetime access to tools, resources, and templates that can help you implement the processes that we teach inside our courses.  ✅ Advance your career, secure that promotion, and become a key asset to your organisation.  ✅ Join over 300 scholars in transforming the maintenance landscape.  This opportunity is perfect for those who are keen to advance their careers but lack company-sponsored training support.  🔔 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝!  So don’t miss your chance to be one of our successful scholars!  ✉️ Interested?  Check out our scholarship page to learn more and send in your application!  Link is in the first comment.  #maintenance #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy

Maintenance is NOT just a cost centre. In fact, there are HUGE opportunities to increase plant profitability, hidden in the maintenance department of most organisations. That's why if you're a Plant Manager or a Senior Executive... then don't just treat maintenance as just a cost centre to be controlled or to be reduced to a minimum. Dig deep and you will find opportunities to... 1. Increase uptime 2. Reduce scheduled downtime 3. Systematically reduce costs by doing less work 4. Increase productivity 5. Make your workplace a better place to work These opportunities ultimately increase your plant's profitability. Start looking at maintenance & reliability as a new opportunity, rather than a 'necessary evil'. Do you need help looking for these opportunities in your organisation? Send us a message here on Linkedin, and let's have a productive discussion about it. #maintenance #reliability #planningandscheduling

𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐆𝐨 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝!🔧 With the end of Safe Work Month just around the corner, let’s take this opportunity to talk about how closely connected safety culture and reliability culture really are. When you build a strong reliability culture, you naturally create a safer work environment. In our article, “𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐫”, we describe the different levels of maturity for a reliability culture—from Toxic to Enlightened. As you climb the ladder, you can see that BOTH safety and reliability improve together. Because at the heart of both cultures... ...𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐬 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧. Let’s look at the similarities between safety and reliability at different levels in the reliability culture ladder: 1️⃣𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 (𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝟐) In a Reactive Culture, teams are constantly firefighting and reacting to breakdowns. This leads to rushed repairs and unsafe conditions. The same applies to safety: if you only address hazards after they occur, you’re always a step behind. 2️⃣ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 (𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝟒) In a Proactive Culture, the focus shifts to preventing issues before they arise. Maintenance is planned, risks are assessed ahead of time, and safety is built into every task. The team has the right tools, materials, and protocols—resulting in fewer accidents and avoiding unexpected breakdowns. 3️⃣ 𝐄𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 (𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝟓) At this highest level, safety and reliability are embedded in the organisation. The team proactively anticipates risks—whether it’s equipment failures or unsafe conditions—ensuring reliable and safe operations. By improving reliability, you’re creating a safer workplace for your team. As Ron Moore says: “A Reliable Plant is a Safe Plant is a Cost-Effective Plant.” That’s why to celebrate Safe Work Month, we’re offering 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝-𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 on Planning & Scheduling and Preventive Maintenance—key processes that improve both reliability and workplace safety. 👉 Links in the first comment. Let’s make your plant not just more reliable, but also safer. #safetyisourbusiness #reliability #ReliabilityAcademy