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In my previous blog, Plant Asset Performance Management is for everyone, I talked about some of the challenges that manufacturing plants face in their day-to-day operations. In the second installment of my series on plant Asset Performance Management (APM), I’d like to take a look at why assets fail and how this information can help you choose an appropriate asset management program to suit the specific needs of your plant.

Why do assets fail?
Understanding the pattern of asset failure is the first step towards defining effective strategies to improve their reliability and availability. Most reliability engineers are familiar with the traditional failure profile represented by the bathtub curve, as shown below.

As you can see in this view, an asset’s life cycle can be divided into three distinct zones:

• Zone 1: High infant mortality, characterized by a high but rapidly decreasing failure rate as latent defects are identified and eliminated, and as assembly, installation, and commissioning issues are resolved
• Zone 2: The infant mortality period is followed by a useful life period. It is during this phase that the failure rate is relatively constant and normally at its lowest. Failures are usually random
• Zone 3: Finally, a wear-out zone, characterized by a rapidly increasing failure rate as components begin to approach the end of their operational lifetime

While the bathtub curve is a useful way to illustrate the age-related failure r...