About the Practical Reliability Engineering Course

The reliability of a Plant or Facility determines its performance – process safety, environmental and cost performance all depend on it. It is thus a pivotal driver, which we can use to make significant business gains. Unfortunately it is often seen as a black art, best left to mathematicians or other specialists.

This practical training course will show you that it is easy to understand and explains how to use data from operating and maintenance records and get the results.

Course Instructor - Kenneth Lees BSc, MSc

Learning Outcomes

The links between maintenance and reliability, and the effect of Reliability on Process & Environmental Safety, Production volumes and maintenance costs will become clear in this highly interactive training seminar.

By attending this 5-Day training course, you will acquire the following:

- Learn reliability terms, their definitions and its use.
- Practice exercises to determine e.g., MTBF, MTTR, Scale and Shape factors etc. and learn how to use these to determine maintenance strategies and operating philosophies.
- Find out how Plant availability depends on reliability and see how configuration affects the outcome.
- Study different failure distributions and see why these matter. Exercises on spares holdings will show them how to optimize these to meet service level and cost considerations.

A number of tools including RCM, RBI, FMECA, IPF, RBD, FTA, ETA and RAM Modelling will be covered briefly, so that you know what to use where. Failure analysis using RCA will be discussed. The Business Process to manage Reliability Improvement and a roadmap to achieve high performance will be included.

5-DAY COURSE OUTLINE

DAY 1

Session One - Reliability Engineering Concepts

- Terminology and definitions
- Probability and Likelihood of Failure
- Understanding basic statistical concepts: Mean, Median, Mode, Standard Deviation, Normal Distribution
- Failure Histograms
- Failure distributions; simple analyses; Probability Density Function, Hazard Rates
- Metrics - MTTF, MTBF, MTTR
- Relationship between Reliability, Availability & Maintainability
- The Bathtub Curve
- How to use reliability information for maintenance

Session Two - Reliability Engineering Applications

- Tools overview; RBDs, Reliability Modelling, FTA / ETA, FMECA, RCM, RBI, RCA
- Computing value added, performance metrics
- Making a Business Case

Session Three - Human Error & Reliability

- People, Process and Plant; Reliability Tripod
- Human Error a major contributor to unreliability
- Understanding Human Error
- Physiological & Psychological Stress
- Rule, Skill and Knowledge based errors
- Error prone situations
- Managing Error

DAY 2

Session One - Degradation Mechanisms

- Wear, Corrosion, Fatigue, Creep, Erosion ......
- Physical process - tyres & potholes, crack propagation
- What do we understand by the term Maintenance?
- Failure Patterns
- Age-related and non age-related failures
- Managing Degradation  - Appropriate Tasks

Session Two - Risk Management

 What is Risk?
- Quantitative Risk
- ALARP and Residual Risk
- Qualitative Risk
- Decision Making
- Selling ideas

Session Three - 
Introduction to Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM)

 Maintenance in context (includes video presentation)
- Why RCM is different
- The seven RCM questions
- The Operating Context
- Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
- Simple RCM Exercise - Kettle
- Where to use RCM
- RCM in Oil & Gas and Process Industry

Session Four - Introduction to Risk Based Inspection (RBI)

- Corrosion Circuits
- Corrosion Rates; Design & Actual
- Probability of failure, Susceptibility to failure
- Consequences; HSE, Production loss, Asset damage
- Process steps, Criticality, Confidence Rating, Inspection Interval factor, Remnant life, Next Inspection Interval
- Non Age-Related failures
- Strategy based tasks
- Where to use RBI

DAY 3

Session One - Introduction to Instrumented Protective Functions (IPF)

- Layers of Protection
- IPF vs. Process Control
- Cause-Consequence charts
- Process Demand Categories
- Consequences; HSE, Production loss, Asset damage
- Safety Integrity Levels
- Implementation
- Spurious Trips/Alarms; Safe Failures
- Testing, Coverage Factor and Maintenance
- Where to use IPF

Session Two - Introduction to Failure Mode, effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)

- Failure Mode and Effect Analysis
- Probability and its ranking
- Detectability of Failure and its ranking
- Consequence and its ranking
- Risk Priority Number - Criticality
- Where to use FMECA

Session Three - Introduction to Fault Tree and Event Tree Analysis (FTA / ETA)

- Terminology, Symbols, and Notation
- Logic Diagrams
- Assigning probabilities
- Incorporating Human Error
- Where to use FTA, ETA

Session Four - Introduction to Reliability Block Diagrams (RBDs) and Reliability Modelling

- System Reliability
- Series RBDs
- Parallel RBDs
- Complex RBDs, Nested RBDs
- Bridge RBDs
- System Analysis
- System Analysis and Modeling
- Analytical and Simulation Models

DAY 4

Session One - Exercises

- Histogram plotting
- Normalizing Histograms
- Probability Density Function, Computing F(t), R(t), z(t)

Session Two - Exercises - Simple Weibull Charts

- Arranging the data set
- Distribution of rank order, Benard's approximation
- Median ranks
- Plotting the data points, best-fit line
- Outputs: Shape and scale factors, B10, B1, B .1,B .01
- Computing the pdf chart values
- Forecasting failures
- Weibull Video

Session Three - Exercises - Reliability Block Diagrams

- Series RBD example
- Parallel RBD example
- Bridge RBD example
- Laboratory Ovens
- Nested RBDs

Session Four - Exercises - More Complex Weibull charts

- Suspended data points
- Censoring, Effect on ranks
- The effect of preventive maintenance
- Applying Benards approximation to get median ranks
- Plotting Weibull chart points
- Plotting the data points, best-fit line

Session Five - Data Sources

- Run length data; run meters, DCS, operating logs
- CMMS; failure data, history text
- Operators and Maintainers as sources
- Publicly available sources, OREDA, IEEE
- Errors in data sources, Independent & Identical conditions

DAY 5

Session One - Implementation of Reliability Improvements

- When & Where to Apply - Selection of Projects
- Preparing the Ground - Knowledge of Current performance
- Identify Critical Systems
- Identify Poor Performers
- Set Objectives
- Sponsor, Terms of Reference, Budget

Session Two - Managing Change

- Change is a process
- Models
- Bereavement Curve
- Reliability Improvement requires Change
- Socratic Method
- Communication Plan
- Need for openness
- Check data quality

Session Three - Analysis and Measurement

- Select the right tools, software
- Use the same metrics before and after study
- Follow the evidence, don't 'bend' the data!
- Apply corrections/confidence limits if data quality is suspect
- Publish ALL results, good or bad
- Communicate to Stakeholders

Session Four - SWOT the Solutions, Track Results and Review Learning

- Every solution is a potential problem
- Evaluate downsides
- Plan mitigation - Check metrics and report KPIs
- Share results and credit contributions
- Report, Present Results; Test results
- Recap
- Q & A

See what others have to say about our training seminars HERE.

Enquiries or comments to info@M2K.com

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