Efficient Plant Sept./Oct. 2019 - 8

column | implementations

Teach Your
Organization
To Fish
Dr. Klaus M. Blache
Univ. of Tennessee Reliability
& Maintainability Center
(RMC)

If reliability is to be sustained, a successful
reliability engineer will teach others in the
plant "how to fish."

Based in Knoxville, Klaus M. Blache is
director of the Reliability & Maintainability
Center at the Univ. of Tennessee, and
a research professor in the College of
Engineering. Contact him at
kblache@utk.edu.

| EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

HROUGHOUT MY MANY
years in manufacturing, there have
been several labels put on similar
functions performed on the plant floor. At
one point, some groups wanted to eliminate
industrial engineering, saying that manufacturing engineers and plant-floor teams would
soon perform those functions. Of course, that
didn't happen. As company capabilities and
needs evolve, so should definitions of various
job titles. The same holds true for reliability
engineering.
Although I added a few words for clarification, substituted the word 'reliability'
for 'systems,' and paraphrased some longer
items, this is the definition used for systems
engineering on Wikipedia: "Reliability
engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that
focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core,
reliability engineering uses systems-thinking
principles to organize this body of knowledge." The definition goes on to state that
it covers areas such as reliability, logistics,
coordination of different teams, testing and
evaluation, maintainability, and many other
disciplines necessary for successful system
development, design, implementation, and
ultimate decommission.
When you look up reliability engineering
in Wikipedia, it states, "Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering
that emphasizes dependability in the lifecycle
management of a product." Reliability is
further described (in the more standard
definition) as the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions
for a specified period of time. It recognizes
reliability as closely related to availability, system safety, and managing risks of failure.
Making things even more unclear is that,
as companies aspire to the benefits of reliability engineering, they assign the reliability

engineer title without defined roles, responsibilities, and sufficient training. Reliability
engineering, in practice today, more closely
fits the definition of systems engineering.
Recent reliability-engineer job postings are
looking for people to:
teach personnel about programs being
implemented to improve reliability and the
positive results of these programs
share reliability best practices across
facilities
ensure that a spare-parts program is
implemented
develop and review PdM program and
schedule
perform analyses to identify reliability
risks using reliability modeling and prediction, Weibull, Six Sigma, RCA, fault tree, and
many more
develop best practices and long-range
strategies for rotating equipment
implement new technology to improve
reliability and enhance machinery performance
support capital projects and testing/
acceptance of new pumps and turbines.
Reliability engineering can go in many
directions, further complicating the definition. You want an engineer who can think
logically, is strong analytically (some prefer
statistically), wants to solve problems, can
think big picture, and has good communication/team-building skills. The person should
have some formal education in reliability and
maintainability, either from a university and/
or professional-development program, based
on the job responsibility. You want a reliability engineer who has knowledge and practical
skills. It's important that they, according to
the old adage, "teach the organization to
fish," in relation to their role in reliability,
versus him/her doing it all. Otherwise, you
will never achieve a sustaining process in the
organization. EP

SEPT/OCT 2019

http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM

Efficient Plant Sept./Oct. 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant Sept./Oct. 2019