Does one of your current jobs sound like this? Then, you might be a maintenance reliability engineer. You’d solve manufacturing problems and work to identify potential flaws in a unit’s design or build. Or think like a detective and follow the broken components’ trail to discover their root cause.
You’d also improve product repair documentation and ensure customer satisfaction, like faster turnaround or accurate parts replacement.
Not sure if this job is the right fit yet? Then read on.
Equipment Monitoring and Analysis
They focus on improving the systems of equipment to increase reliability and reduce failure rates. They use data analytics to determine the following:
- the age
- environment
- life cycle
- usage patterns
- Maintenance schedule of the equipment
The same data analytics can also help in the creation of preventive maintenance programs and identify points of failure or inefficiencies. They are also responsible for ensuring the systems are compliant with any relevant legislation or regulations.
Root Cause Analysis
Using root cause analysis, they identify the root cause of the failure and put in place corrective and preventive measures to reduce the chance of similar failures occurring in the future. By using predictive and proactive maintenance practices, the engineers assist in ensuring the availability, reliability, and optimal performance of equipment and systems. They evaluate:
- spare parts stock
- set up preventive
- routine
- corrective maintenance programs
To review testing and inspection results to help identify and eliminate any potential issues before they can cause production problems. By identifying and mitigating any potential factors contributing to component failure, a maintenance engineer is instrumental in minimizing downtime and costs.
Collaboration and Training
It is a professional responsible for developing, managing, and overseeing maintenance and a reliability-centered maintenance training program. The role involves close collaboration and training with all stakeholders within an organization’s structure, such as:
- Operations
- Maintenance
- Parts
- Quality
- Engineering and Safety
They must identify training needs, develop training and plans for implementation, and assess the effectiveness of training. The engineer must work to manage, analyze, and improve the maintenance and reliability of machines and equipment while taking into account their design and operational requirements.
Reliability Improvement Planning
They are responsible for identifying and resolving maintenance problems to improve the reliability and performance of equipment and systems. They strive to optimize reliability maintenance programs focusing on preventive and predictive maintenance strategies. They analyze failure events to determine root causes and use corrective action to address them.
They also use statistical process control techniques to identify trends that can be used to develop long-term reliability plans. They coordinate planned maintenance activities and develop efficient schedules to minimize downtime and related costs.
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
FMEA is a structured, proactive approach to identifying potential failure modes in an existing or designed system, assessing the associated risks, and providing corrective recommendations. The engineer’s role in FMEA is to assess and assign risk categories to the potential:
- failure modes
- propose solutions for correcting
- mitigating the risks
- provide recommendations
- preventative measures
The engineer may also support additional reliability activities, such as failure reporting and corrective action systems, failure data collection and reporting, and the development of reliability-based maintenance plans.
The Role of a Maintenance Reliability Engineer
A maintenance reliability engineer is an essential role in any organization. Their work is vital as it helps ensure all the necessary industrial and operational equipment runs smoothly and efficiently. If you’re looking for a challenge with big potential returns, then this could be the job for you!
If you’d like to learn more about what we offer, feel free to reach out on our website.
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