Unit Reliability Meeting Tips?

[Engineering1012]

I'd like to hear any of your experiences in holding bi-weekly or monthly reliability engineering meetings. Whether it be for a specific unit in a chemical plant like myself, or other applications. Do you start off with the big hitters of the month? Equipment of focus? Safety...etc? Include maintenance/operations personnel? Just looking to improve upon things and see how others hold their meetings.

Thanks in advance, any input would be helpful!

 

[ehbadger]

I hold weekly reliability/maintenance meetings for my "unit" or area/process. The agenda typically has some "every week" type things and then rotates other topics monthly. Attendance is reliability guys, sometimes the reliability specialists might show up (if we have a topic specific to their interest). Other main attendees include area maintenance coordinators, mechanic/maintenance shop crew leader, process/quality engineer, process/area team leader, perhaps an NDT/integrity guy, etc.

Each meeting starts with any "Special Topics" someone might have for discussion, i.e. review upcoming shutdown work, review a root cause investigation finding, etc. These are established week by week. Then we go around the room and people give short updates on the day-to-day stuff they have going on, i.e. we have X column halfway reinsulated, plan to finish by Friday. I've got a spreadsheet listing all the 'major' equipment in the area, and as people talk about things I jot in the notes in the appropriate row (I make a new column each meeting).

Then, we try to hit the rotation topics. Example.
Week 1 of the month we review the "operator/technician wish list" which is a list of ideas (safety, reliability, efficiency, I just want this, type of list that all the operators can contribute to)'
Week 2 we might review and delinquent PMs (basically if there are any 'critical' planned maintenance items that were scheduled that did not get done in the time intended.
Week 3 might be a quick review of any near misses, releases/spills, 'incidents' in the area that may r may not merit follow-up
Week 4 might be a review of the progress for the annual large plant shutdown; skim through the high level work list, make sure key components are on track for timely delivery, etc


All that above is "ideal". More often than not the meeting is just any special topics (which often seem to include things that would fit into the 'rotating topics' buckets) and then an around the room. There are usually a few things that come up in the around the room that spark some good discussion and often consume most of the meeting. Every few weeks I just scroll through the entire spreadsheet and sometimes that jogs someone's memory of a question or update they have that they may have forgotten to bring up in the round table. Just keeps everything in focus so we don't forget things or let an open project linger too long.

I've played with a lot of different agendas in the last 4 years that I've been responsible for meetings and it's always been challenging to find a format/agenda/structure that consistently works. Most the time a lot of the 'regular' agenda stuff can be boring/not needed. So trying to keep everyone engaged is tough, and then throw in things like unexpected maintenance issues and the meetings are really just a good place to talk through current maintenance/reliability projects and bounce ideas around.

 

[Engineering1012]

Yeah there are already quiete a few meetings set in place in my unit. There are the daily morning 30 min meetings of whats going on, status's, safety...etc. Then daily 1:30pm maintenance/work items to be conducted next day. Shutdown meetings...etc But not a "reliability" meeting per say. I'm new to the area and as a reliability/maintenance engineer in general so any experiential advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!