We often get overwrought by trying to work out the skill set that Reliability Engineers should have. In particular people often- almost always- focus on the high end probabilistic functions. And every single time we focus on the technical capabilities - often missing out altogether the personal and professional skills these people should have.
I am working on a paper relating to this issue as I think it is a vital issue heading into the second decade of the 21st century. Particularly as enterprise seems to have suddenly woken up to the importance of what we do.
In brief, I think the following are basic technical skills:
- RCM (Must have)
- RCA (Must have)
- Maintenance work processes (Must have)
- Weibull and Growth Analysis (Nice to have)
- WoL modelling (Must have)
- Asset Economics (Critical)
A fair challenge for most of us. Particularly as most of us start out with just a focus on our own engineering disciplines.
This is where the challenge really starts. because even if you have a guy with all of these skills what you will end up with is a set of very expertly done analysis on the shelf. With no real hard results to speak of.
The team will be wondering what this guy is doing. The Reliability Engineer will be disheartened because he thinks that nobody is taking him seriously. And from the corporate point of view it is a waste of time and money generally speaking.
This is why they need a range of additional interpersonal skills. No, I am not talking about "effective communication" or other 1980's garbage. I mean real stuff. The sorts of things that takes a role like this from boffin to game changer.
- Can you present? Really present? Tell stories and craft presentations that will have people enthralled and leave them wanting to tell everyone about your work?
- Can you lead others? Not be a manager, but be a leader? Managers administer, leaders inspire. Managers get the job done, leaders paint a vision and charge off in front of the pack.
- Can you get things moving? Not get things done but get them moving. Are you able to get the senior management to be buzzing among themselves about the prospects of real valuable benefits from the work you are doing?
There are a range of other soft skills that I am going to cover in this paper. I think it is a subject whose time has really come.
Hi Daryl,
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff! Don't know many authors that have touched base on this topic. From my background, i feel that Weibull, grouth, and Reliability System Modeling (refered to as RAM in Meridium) is a must if the role is related to data analysis and optimization. Really don't know what WoL modelling is. Overall, i am looking forward to reading the paper. Any time frame for the release?
Regards,
Mustapha
Mustapha, great to hear from you. I am working on the article now and hope to have something useful in the next two weeks.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your points on RAM and other probabilistic methods. But my experience is that it depends greatly on where the company is on it's journey into reliability engineering.
Great to hear from you ...