ARP-E® Reliability Engineer

After a brief introduction into the strategy and the role of the reliability engineer, we will take a deep dive into reliability engineering data analysis, including statistical analysis, Pareto analysis, Weibull analysis, Crow-AMSAA, and other techniques including AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics.

Then we will explore risk assessment and risk analysis, including a deep-dive into asset criticality ranking.

Next, we will explore defect elimination and look at the entire life cycle of the asset, from the project management and design (including designing for reliability, availability, maintainability, safety i.e. RAMS, plus energy efficiency), the procurement process, acceptance testing, through the maintenance and repair process, through to operations.

Then we will take a deeper dive into how to minimize equipment failure by developing an asset strategy (also known as the strategic maintenance plan). We will discuss fault tree analysis (causal tree analysis), Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), and Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO).

Next, we will look at how we can apply a disciplined approach to the way maintenance is performed. We will begin with a discussion of developing a master asset list [MAL], bill of materials [BOM], and a management of change [MoC] process. Then we will discuss work management (planning/scheduling) and spares/materials management [MRO]. While the reliability engineer can’t control what the maintenance department does, you will certainly understand planning and scheduling best practices and how to achieve the best outcome.

Adding to the discussion of work management is a detailed look at precision and proactive maintenance for rotating machinery, electrical equipment, and other asset types. The training will include lubrication application and contamination control, precision laser and belt alignment, precision fastening (electrical and mechanical), and precision balancing.

Next, the course will take a close look at the condition monitoring program and all of the key technologies: vibration analysis, ultrasound analysis, oil and wear particle analysis, infrared thermography, electric motor testing, electrical and power quality testing, transformer testing, partial discharge, NDT, and performance monitoring.

And finally, time is spent on the details of root cause analysis and the Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action System [FRACAS]. This is an important component of any reliability program and we cover problem-solving and project management.

If you are wondering whether 4 1/2 days is enough time to feel comfortable with all of these topics, then we highly recommend that you take advantage of the Mobius Institute learning zone and view the lessons online before the course. And if after the course you still have any areas of doubt, watch the videos again.

But remember, we have the famous Mobius Institute simulations and animations that make these technical topics far easier to learn and understand.

Here are the topics we cover on the course.

• INTRODUCTION
  • The reliability engineer and the reliability program leader
  • Overview of the Asset Reliability Transformation® process
  • The benefits of reliability
  • How does reliability improvement compare to other programs?
• CULTURE CHANGE
  • Culture change and you
  • Getting suggestions
  • The brown-paper process
  • Motivation
• TRAINING AND SKILLS ASSESSMENT
  • Why do people need to be trained?
  • Skills assessment
  • Training and certification
• RISK AND CONSEQUENCES
  • Assessing the risks
  • Developing the consequence ranking system
• LIKELIHOOD AND DETECTABILITY
  • How likely is failure?
  • Will we see the failure coming?
• RELIABILITY DATA ANALYSIS
  • The importance and value of data
  • The foundation of reliability engineering
  • Statistical techniques
  • Data and Weibull distribution
  • Duane model and Crow-AMSSA
  • Reliability block diagrams (RBDs)
  • Using reliability data for decision making
  • Data quality
• ASSET CRITICALITY RANKING
  • How should the asset criticality ranking be defined?
  • Asset criticality ranking step by step
• PARETO ANALYSIS
  • What is Pareto analysis?
  • Pareto analysis example
• DEFECT ELIMINATION
  • What is defect elimination?
  • Defect elimination strategy
• MINIMIZE LIFE CYCLE COST
  • Life cycle cost minimization
  • Design for reliability
  • Value-driven procurement
  • Acceptance testing
• OPERATIONS AND RELIABILITY
  • Operator-driven reliability (ODR)
  • Standard operating procedures (SOP)
  • Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
• ASSET STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
  • What is an asset strategy?
  • How to develop an asset strategy
  • Typical outcomes of an asset strategy
• MASTER ASSET LIST AND BILL OF MATERIALS
  • How to develop an accurate Master Asset List (MAL)
  • How to create a Bill Of Materials (BOM)
  • Change management
• FAULT TREE ANALYSIS (FTA)
  • What is FTA?
  • The steps of FTA
  • Example of FTA
• FAILURE MODES, EFFECTS, AND CRITICALITY ANALYSIS (FMECA)
  • What is FMECA?
  • The steps of FMECA
  • Example of FMECA
• RELIABILITY CENTERED MAINTENANCE (RCM)
  • What is RCM?
  • The steps of RCM
  • Example of RCM
• PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE OPTIMIZATION (PMO)
  • What is PMO?
  • Prerequisites for performing PMO
  • Getting started
• ROOT CAUSE (FAILURE) ANALYSIS (RCA)
  • Why and when to perform RCA?
  • People and RCA
  • RCA techniques
  • Condition Monitoring data and RCA
• WORK MANAGEMENT
  • Goals of work management
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Work management flow
  • Job scheduling and execution
  • Closeout and feedback
• SPARES AND MATERIAL MANAGEMENT
  • The importance of spares management
  • Spares database
  • The selection process and purchasing requirements
  • Caring for spares
  • The storeroom
• PRECISION LUBRICATION AND CONTAMINATION CONTROL
  • The importance of lubrication
  • How lubrication works
  • Contamination
  • Filtration
  • Storage and dispensing
• PRECISION SHAFT ALIGNMENT
  • Introduction to shaft alignment
  • What is misalignment?
  • Types of misalignment
  • Determine the alignment state
• ROTOR BALANCING
  • What is unbalance?
  • Causes of unbalance
  • Diagnosing unbalance
  • Why balance?
  • Balancing the rotor
• MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL FASTENING
  • Precision fastening
  • Bolt torquing (tensioning)
  • Electrical connections
  • 5S AND THE VISUAL WORKPLACE
  • 5S: Lean: Six Sigma Reliability improvement
• VIBRATION ANALYSIS
  • Introduction to vibration analysis
  • Vibration sensors
  • Overall level readings
  • Vibration spectra, time waveform, and phase analysis
  • Rolling element bearing fault detection
  • Fluid-film bearing and rotor fault detection
  • The future of vibration analysis
  • Case studies
• ULTRASOUND
  • Introduction to ultrasound
  • Mechanical and electrical applications
• OIL ANALYSIS
  •  New and used oil analysis
  • Analysis technologies
  • Measuring and reporting oil cleanliness
  • Wear particle analysis
• INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY
  • Introduction to infrared analysis
  • Mechanical and electrical applications
• INSPECTIONS PERFORMANCE AND NDT
  • Visual inspections
  • Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods
• ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
  • Power quality
  • Electrical testing
  • Partial discharge
  • Induction motor testing
  • Motor current signature analysis (MCSA)
  • Electrical signature analysis (ESA)
  • Motor circuit analysis (MCA)
• THE FUTURE OF CONDITION MONITORING
  • Technologies and analytics in the future
• BREAKING OUT OF REACTIVE MAINTENANCE
  • How to break out of the reactive maintenance cycle of doom
• CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT (Kaizen)
  • Key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Maintenance metrics
  • CM and reliability performance
  • Review program strategy

In order to be certified you must:

• Complete a MIBoC approved training course (click here for a list of approved courses).
• Achieve 70% or higher on the exam (100 multiple choice questions, duration 3 hours).
• You must have a minimum of twenty-four (24) months of experience in the industry involved in some way with reliability improvement (including direct involvement in the reliability improvement process), verified by an independent person.

Certification is valid for 3 years.

If you do not have the experience, you will still receive a certificate, but you will not be officially certified. When you pass the 24-month milestone, please contact MIBoC to be  upgraded to full certification.

You can learn more about the certification process here or download our ARP Certification Guide here.

The role of “Reliability Engineer” does not have a clear-cut definition. And different organizations utilize reliability engineers differently. However, after our course, you will have a solid understanding of a wide range of topics that will enable you to perform the tasks that are commonly performed by reliability engineers, and provide advice to people in the maintenance, engineering, and operations/production departments.

Let me explain.

Reliability data analysis

You will have a good understanding of statistics, asset criticality ranking, Pareto analysis, Weibull analysis, and Crow-AMSAA. You will also learn about Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD) and the Monte Carlo method – and a few other topics. You will know whether you need to utilize those techniques: their benefits, the tools you will need, how you can utilize what you learned, etc.

With this information:

1. You will be able to work with other stakeholders to develop a thorough, robust criticality ranking. And with that, you can prioritize and justify a wide range of tasks
2. You will able to extract data and perform Pareto analysis to identify your bad actors and thus prioritize your improvement activities.
3. You will understand Weibull analysis, Crow-AMSAA, reliability block diagrams, and Monte Carlo analysis so that, if you had the tools to perform that analysis, they would make perfect sense. Additional training would be required to master those techniques.

Asset strategy development: FTA, RCM, PMO, FMECA

You must follow a structured process to ensure your asset strategy (maintenance plan) manages your risks and makes the best use of available resources. We spend a lot of time on these subjects so that you understand:

1. Why it is so important to develop a maintenance plan with a clear understanding of asset criticality, the function (and context) of the asset, and the failure modes.
2. How to avoid the common traps experienced with the use/implementation of these techniques.

Now, you can attend week-long courses on RCM, PMO, and FMECA, so there is more you can learn. Having said that, many of those courses also cover topics that are covered separately on our course, for example, condition monitoring, failure patterns, precision maintenance, etc. And on those courses, you will spend time with basic exercises putting what you have learned into practice with exercises, etc.

Therefore, the ARP-E course cannot make you an expert in every area of reliability, maintenance, design, and operations but you will have a very clear picture of how to utilize these techniques, you will be able to assess whether the techniques you used to develop your maintenance plan was adequate, you will be able to assess consultants who may help you in your implementation – and it will be a foundation to learn much more.

Condition monitoring

You will understand how a “condition-based maintenance” program should work; how to prioritize the implementation, how to select the technologies, how to select the measurement periods, and so on. You will also learn about the technologies.

With this information, you will be able to assess your existing program, or how to select contractors, and how to improve what you are already doing.

But please remember, there is a LOT to know about each technology and how to successfully run the program. You will require additional training if you want to communicate with condition monitoring experts at a technical level. The training will, however, enable you to know what “good” looks like.

We do offer additional condition monitoring training if you are interested.

Lubrication management

One of the key topics for people with rotating machinery is how to manage lubricants and hydraulic fluids.

Once again, you can spend a week learning about this subject, and there are additional courses to gain true expertise. But with the ARP-E course, you will have a very clear understanding of the importance of selecting the right lubricants and how to avoid contamination. You will feel very comfortable with this subject. You will be able to take that knowledge to improve your current practices.

Precision maintenance

Precision maintenance is certainly one of the keys to improved reliability. You will learn enough about precision fastening (electrical and mechanical), shaft and belt alignment, and rotor balancing to identify whether your current practices meet the required high standards. You will be familiar with all the key terms so that you can engage with the craftspeople, contractors, and vendors of the equipment.

We do offer additional alignment and balancing training if you are interested.

Work and spares management

Work management (planning and scheduling) is another core component of a successful reliability program: it affects the quality of work, the efficiency of the work, the safe execution of the work, and the costs of executing the work. Spares management works hand-in-hand with work management – you can’t have one without the other. Spares management reduces costs, improves work efficiency, and can dramatically reduce maintenance costs.

In this course, you will learn enough to know what “good” looks like. Normally the reliability engineer does not have responsibility for work and spares management, but you will understand that it plays a very important role in reliability improvement, and you will be able to assess whether what your organization is doing is “world-class” or whether there are “opportunities for improvement”. You can then advise (with tact) the maintenance manager about changes that could be made.

Root cause failure analysis

There are lengthy courses you can take to master the various techniques (5-Why, Ishikawa, fault/causal tree, etc.), to utilize software, and more, but what you will learn on our course will set you up for success.  You will understand:

1. What the techniques are and basically how to use them (5-Why, Ishikawa, KT, FTA, and others)
2. How to manage the projects
3. The human error factors
4. The human psychology side of solving problems and implementing solutions
5. How to manage the project (A3, 8D, 16J) to ensure the process has the desired outcome

But the truth is, we only get to spend approximately half-a-day on this important topic, so there is more to learn. But you will know what you know, and you will know what you need to learn so that you feel confident to perform root cause failure analysis.