Introduction to Weibull Analysis
Bill Keeter, ARMS Reliability Engineers - USA

Weibull Analysis of failures is an important tool in reliability improvement. During this presentation attendees will be introduced to basic Weibull concepts and learn the practical application of Weibull techniques in determining maintenance strategies. Attendees will learn how to use Weibull to identify failure mechanisms that are present in their facilities and which maintenance strategies are appropriate for dealing with the failure mechanisms.

RCM Process Reduces Maintenance Spending and Increases Production Output
Brian Stevens, CMRP, MRG Inc.

In this session, you'll learn how a struggling facility spent seven years trying to deal with out-of-control maintenance spending, production problems and reliability challenges. The plant had undergone several major process re-designs and still struggled to achieve maintenance spending and production goals.

After implementing the RCM process, maintenance spending dropped from seven percent of replacement asset value (RAV) to just 4 percent and capacity increased by twenty percent. Participants will discover the "Road to Success" for this facility and learn the logistics, tools, plan and sustainability aspects that led to this plants success.

Achieving Pacesetter Performance through Sound Lubrication Practices
John Gobert, Jim Crissman and Mike Hill, PREMCOR

In this rotating equipment-oriented case study session, you’ll learn how this refinery started a basic lubrication program in 2000 and transformed it into a money-saving, reliability-enhancing program. Discover how best practice handling, contamination control, education, and oil testing were implemented throughout the plant, reducing equipment failures and boosting employee morale.

Surf the Three Waves to Reliability Excellence
Gary Johnson, Alcoa and Tom Dabbs, LifeCycle Engineering, Inc.

The Three Waves to Reliability Excellence is a proven methodology for effectively implementing a global reliability improvement initiative in a large multinational organization. This process is a combination of proven maintenance and reliability fundamentals focusing on creating corporate sponsorship, and a solid implementation process. The foundation of this methodology is in creating a true partnership between operations and maintenance. In this partnership, operations own reliability of the assets and maintenance is a significant partner dedicated to provide expertise and support.

Alcoa’s Award Winning Reliability Engineering Process: A Deschambault Case Study
Gary Johnson, Alcoa

Doing the right things right is perhaps the best description one can give to the maintenance operations at the Alcoa aluminum smelter in Deschambault, Quebec, Canada . By demonstrating superior performance in just about every area of reliability, Alcoa-Deschambault earned the North American Maintenance Excellence (NAME) Award for 2002 - an honor shared by only a handful of organizations. Alcoa-Deschambault has developed a Reliability Engineering program that has become the model for all Alcoa smelters, as well as industrial plants in general. Their reliability processes and methods have driven equipment failures to remarkable lows which has created stability within their production processes and contributed to an industry leading “cost per pound” value which continues to grow Alcoa’s market share. Learn all about Alcoa’s unique process in this informative presentation.

How to Verify Plant Capacity Using Reliability Modeling
Bill Keeter, ARMS Reliability Engineers - USA

New manufacturing facilities and facility additions are justified based on intended rate of return for the capital investment. The rate of return on the investment is highly dependent on whether or not the new facility or addition will meet its projected capacity goals. Facilities often fall short of expectations due to a lack of understanding of the failures and maintenance issues that will be present in the new facility. In this informative session, learn how to use Reliability Block Diagrams and Monte Carlo Simulation to predict output of a proposed facility based on expected equipment performance.

The Value of Implementing Reliability Based Maintenance Practices
Eric Bevevino, ChevronTexaco Products Company

Even though money spent on lubricants is a small portion of most industrial facilities’ operational budgets, the impact of a poorly maintained lubrication program can be financially devastating. It’s estimated that downtime related to preventable lubricant related failures costs as much as $4 billion each year in North America alone.

Due to the relatively low spend on lubricants in a plant’s maintenance budget (typically <4%), the opportunity to drive production reliability numbers higher through the incorporation of lubrication programs is often overlooked. Quickly dismissing the efficiency improvement possibilities of lubrication and related service programs can sadly keep an average or poor performing plant from greatness. In this session you'll learn about the role of fluid conditioning, filtration systems, storage containers, desiccant breathers, consulting services, leak control, inventory management, tank monitoring, vibration analysis, thermography and oil analysis in developing a reliability based maintenance program.

How to Deploy Lubrication Excellence
Mark Barnes, Noria Corp

Lubrication Excellence is at face-value a very simple process. It is about getting the right lubricant (oil or grease), in the right place, at the right time, and making sure the lubricant is kept clean, dry and cool. So why do so many organizations struggle to achieve or sustain excellence in lubrication? In this paper, we will examine the cultural, political and resource challenges that often prevent turning a good idea on paper into a reality, and offer practical tips and advice on transforming any lubrication program from average to world class.

Improved Productivity Through Lubricant and Fluid Selection and Management Standards
Donald, J. Smolenski, General Motors Worldwide Facilities Group

Comprehensive industry standards for many industrial lubricants and fluids are notably lacking. Such standards would benefit end users in reducing the time and expense of evaluating potential products. Performance expectations are often based on company reputation and price, rather than objective data. Suppliers sometimes resist relative product performance studies, because many are happy with status quo, and also for legitimate concerns regarding plant correlation. Product management is becoming more important for worker health and process productivity, as well.

To protect worker health, GM developed standards a decade ago to ensure the use of only highly refined base oils, and has largely implemented them. Performance standards pose a somewhat greater challenge. GM now has well defined standards for hydraulic fluids, gear oils, etc., and standards for metal removal fluids are currently under development. The current state of GM standards will be reviewed and some plant correlation data will provide insights. A systematized effort to improve and standardize fluid management is also critical, and will be covered briefly. Finally, future directions and needs will be discussed.

Reliability Engineering Principles

Drew D. Troyer, CRE, CMRP

Increasingly, managers and engineers who are responsible of manufacturing and other industrial pursuits are incorporating a reliability focus into their strategic and tactical plans and initiatives. This trend is affecting numerous functional areas, including machine/system design and procurement, operations and maintenance.  With its origins in the aviation industry, reliability engineering, as a discipline, has historically been solely focused on the functions of machine/system design, and its associated activities.  Expanding the reliability focus to maintenance and operations requires that managers and engineers responsible for these functions become well-grounded on reliability engineering methods. This presentation provides an introduction to the most relevant of these methods.

Lubrication of Rolling Bearings in Critical Running Conditions

Michael Weigand, Lubricant Consult GMBH

Integrated Reliability - Setting up a Cost Effective Preventive Maintenance System for Operations and Maintenance in Your Plant

Torbjörn (Tor) Idhammar IDCON, INC.

All plants have some form of preventive maintenance process. However, many are labor intensive because they often are not coordinated between operations and maintenance, selection of frequency is incorrect, and too many PM's are performed during shutdowns instead of on-the-run. This workshop will give you ideas on how to setup a cost effective route based preventive maintenance system that works.

Provide the instructor with a synopsis of your problem upon registration and your scenario may be used as one of the class exercises.

Eleven Basic Rules to Follow to Attain Reliability and Maintenance Excellence

By Jack R. Nicholas, Jr., P.E. CMRP, of MQS LLC

In this session you’ll hear a message that reflects over 45 years experience of the speaker as practitioner, trainer, and advisor in the fields of maintenance and reliability Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear Jack Nicholas discuss his eleven “rules” and associated “corollaries”. Real world examples of successes and failures are provided to emphasize the right and wrong ways to approach reliability and maintenance in general and excellence in particular.

Standards Initiative by the Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals

Drew D. Troyer, CRE, CMRP

To better serve its mission and membership, the board of directors of the Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP) recently approved a proposal to become actively involved in standards for maintenance and reliability by working with the standards activities in other technical organizations. Numerous standards related to the SMRP body of knowledge that currently exist, are under development or are planned.  Previously, SMRP has exerted no formal or organized influence on the development of standards, which can profoundly affect the manner in which maintenance and reliability efforts are planned and executed. This presentation details the committees plans to organize a database of maintenance and reliability standards relative to the SMRP body of knowledge, critically analyze them relative to SMRP’s vision and mission, analyze gaps and ultimately create and execute plan to eliminate gaps.  

Using RCM to Solve Lubrication Failure Modes
Terry Harris, CMRP

Determining failure modes in equipment and processes is a function of the RCM process. This session will introduce you to the software and processes used with RCM Blitz and how it can be used to look at failure modes in the lubrication process. Lubricant failures can be from temperature, moisture, foreign material, and many more. How can RCM help? By using this process a systematic and understandable method of determining the effects of the failure can be found. From this point tasks can be formulated to eliminate the failure modes. Many times we understand the failure modes, but don’t have an organized method to solve the problem. The RCM process will guide us to four possible answers. We will prevent, predict, eliminate, or reduce the consequences should the failure occur.