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Mapping from Failure to Successful Repair in a High Volume Environment
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ZCO is a Mechanical Engineer, Locomotive Reliability and Quality Consultant, Reliability and Maintenance Consultant with world-class expertise in plant operations, maintenance, engineering and reliability management in the refining and chemical industry.
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A recent assignment entailed the development of a system to help improve reliability in a high volume maintenance environment. The challenge involved creating a system that could quickly identify and repair defects in an environment where several dozen failures occurred each day on a fleet of several thousand mobile vehicles.
The "current situation" was that, while it was recognized that repeated failure patterns existed, no comprehensive and discipline system had been installed to map incidents from initial symptom identification through to successful repair and root cause elimination.
In this situation, it is important to recognize that there are really no new failure modes or failure mechanisms. It is therefore possible to identify and map all likely combinations. From the point that initial symptoms are identified, there are a relatively limited number of paths that the entire failure/repair scenario can take. In addition, the relative likelihood of each path can be quantified if the number of failures following each path are properly identified and recorded following each incident.
The cycle of a typical failure includes the following steps:
- Malfunction reporting - Identify which critical function has been affected and how it is currently behaving. Each unit has a specific number of functions and each function has a specific number of recognizable abnormal behaviors. Interactive malfunction reporting can include questions concerning fault logs or other conditions that can help funnel in on the most likely problem.
- Diagnostics - Based on reported symptoms, the systems needs to be capable of doing three things:
- a. Quick fix - Can repairs be made instantaneously? Frequently, simply recycling a computer will eliminate faults and restore functions.
- b. Triage - If quick fix is not possible, identify the repair approach that is likely to be most effective, require the least downtime and cost the least.
- c. Order of attack for troubleshooting - When there is more than one possible cause of the symptoms and troubleshooting is needed, which path is most likely? What does the troubleshooter check first, second, and on.
- Troubleshooting - Effective troubleshooting has several important characteristics. First, it should begin with most likely paths first and proceed from most likely to least likely. Second, it needs to clearly identify the tasks needed to fix the problem. Third, it needs to record and properly bucket the actual failure mode.
- Fault analysis - Once the failure mode is known, the avenue that leads to permanently eliminating similar failures begins with identifying the failure mechanism. This is easier than one might initially think. Again, there are a relatively small number of failure mechanisms. For instance, for mechanical devices the failure mechanism must be corrosion, erosion, fatigue or overload. There are no other choices. If we know the failure has been caused by corrosion, for instance, we can begin looking for the cause of corrosion.
- Root Cause Analysis - Total elimination of a problem requires that we identify the three levels of cause: physical cause, human cause and latent or systemic cause. By tracking the problem back to the root cause, we not only fix the current problem; we also eliminate future problems.
In a high volume environment, it is critical that the information is recorded and made available in a user-friendly, readily accessible computer based system. In addition to helping personnel find their way through likely paths, the system needs to be able to properly "bucket" data on an instantaneous basis and update the likelihood of each path as failure patterns change with age or condition of equipment.
Read other articles by this KKAI Associate:
RAM Analysis of a Moderate Sized Chemical Plant
Root Cause Analysis of Hydrogen Compressor Failure
Application of Reliability Block Diagram Analysis to Overall Plant Configuration
Fixing Responsibility for Project Delays Due to Weld Defects
Project Readiness - CPM Review
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Kevin Kennedy & Associates, Inc.
Rapid Response Engineering® Solutions
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