This course provides participants with an in-depth and practical understanding of how to investigate and prevent equipment failure.
Failure analysis has historically been viewed as the domain of technical specialists, using complicated tools and programs to inform maintenance and operating teams what they have done incorrectly. This course demystifies failure analysis and places it in the hands of the maintenance and operating organizations in order to enable greater asset reliability.
The course explores models such as Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA); it demonstrates how these can be broken down into simple steps that can engage the whole organization, from the operating team to the technical specialists.
The course also covers effective failure control and how to learn from the failure investigation or failure prevention analysis to not just identify the problem, but to implement effective robust controls as well in order to prevent future similar failures across an organization’s assets.
As well as best-in-class visuals and slides, this course includes a high level of interaction between the facilitator and participants to ensure the course is meeting their specific requirements. Numerous relevant case studies are utilized to demonstrate key points and a series of exercises are conducted to apply learning and to appreciate key aspects of best practice.
Course Methodology
This is an interactive course. There are open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises, videos, case studies and presentations on best practice and the fundamentals of reliability improvement. Participants have the option and opportunity to share and discuss their own work experience and to identify issues and enhancements that can be immediately tackled/applied upon returning to their organizations.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
Understand equipment function and therefore skillfully identify equipment failure
Effectively investigate equipment failure incidents to understand root causes
Implement effective controls to avoid similar incidents occurring
Engage their organization to achieve more effective failure investigation
Analyze critical equipment systems to avoid future failure
Target Audience
This course is ideal for maintenance managers, operations managers and reliability professionals. Maintenance engineers, experienced supervisors, planners and functional specialists will also benefit greatly from this course.
Target Competencies
Failure investigation
Failure control implementation
Root cause analysis and 5Y
Failure mode identification
Reliability engineering
Course Outline
Purpose of Failure Investigation, Prevention and Control
Understanding the needs of the business
How equipment failures effect profit and customer satisfaction
Risk assessment and prioritization
Introduction to the Integrated Model of Excellence for Maintenance
Understanding Function and Failure Modes
Understanding equipment function
The history of failure mode modelling and where people go wrong
Introduction to failure types
Principles of Failure Investigation
What is Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA)
Gathering data, how to understand what has really happened
Investigating further with Barrier Analysis and Change Identification
Getting to root cause with 5 why’s
Organising your investigation with Cause Types and Fault Trees
The importance of facts and data based analysis
Principles of Failure Prediction
What Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) is
Understanding when it is appropriate to undertake FMEA
Pitfalls for FMEA and how to avoid these
FMEA as part of an integrated Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) process
Implementing Failure Prevention Controls
Types of controls
How to choose the appropriate control
Making controls stick
Practical implementation methods
Organizing your business to effectively learn from failure
Who needs to be engaged in achieving the change?
The importance of communication
Implementing Continuous Improvement in your failure learning process