Reliability Improvement Course

The Reliability Improvement course has been designed to illustrate fundamental reliability concepts without having to resort to complex mathematics. Its purpose is to bridge the gap between the rather theoretical subject of ‘Reliability Engineering’ and day-to-day equipment maintenance practice by emphasising the common goals of reliability and maintenance.

This course is also available as an on-site customised course

Course Cost: €750	Duration:2 days	Date: 9th - 10th March 2010
Location: Dublin	Click for our booking form	Click to view our Cancellation Policy

Course Objectives

• Understand the importance of equipment failure and/or repair data collecting
• Apply statistical techniques for the analysis of this data
• Formulate maintenance and operating strategies designed to increase plant equipment availability
• Perform Failure Mode and Effect Analyses (FMEA)
• Understand the principles of Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
• Apply rational benefit-cost analysis for machinery component reliability upgrading projects
• Determine optimum testing intervals of stand-up equipment
• Use several techniques that can be applied immediately to improve equipment maintenance, operation, commissioning, installation and procurement
• Illustrate the application of the above reliability techniques via industrial case studies
• Illustrate the importance of an integrated reliability improvement strategy for Machinery

Course Content

• Strategic Importance of Reliability
• Assessing current performance
• Making the right strategic choices
• Basic modelling building blocks
• Deterministic models
• Probabilistic models
• Case study examples
• Origins of failure
• Six common patterns
• Analysing failure patterns
• Risk assessment & criticality
• Failure modes and effects analysis
• Producing a practical maintenance plan
• Assessing the improvement potential versus the cost

Participant Profile

The target audience is for Maintenance and Equipment Reliability Professionals, Supervisors and Senior Technicians involved in machinery reliability and availability work. Personnel from process industries such as refining, petrochemical, chemical, mining, pharmaceutical, fertilizer, pulp and paper manufacturing, food processing and utilities will profit. This course will appeal to organisations where plant downtime must be minimised and avoided where possible in order to achieve their business targets. An in-depth treatment of the major factors that have to be considered in order to assess and improve the reliability of equipment and machinery are examined.

Trainer Profile

Paul Wheelhouse BSc (Hons) C.Eng. MIEE worked for ICI in a variety of senior maintenance and production roles for 20 years. A large part of this time was devoted to enhancing the performance of plant, work processes and the functioning of groups. His last post was European Operations Manager for its Specialty Chemicals Business where he was responsible for both in-house manufacturing and contract manufacturing across the European Union.

For the past 10 years Paul has been engaged in Maintenance and Asset Management consulting. This has involved identifying solutions for clients to enhance their return on assets through improved equipment reliability, reduced working capital and effective use of resources. His assignments have been across a multitude of industries located around the world. He regularly makes contributions to maintenance conferences and maintenance-related publications.

Paul is a Chartered Engineer, a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a Council member of the Institute of Asset Management and an associate member of the Institute of Management. He is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Manchester in the UK where he lectures on maintenance for MSc and MBA programmes.