Clik here to view.
Reliability Risk Reduction Tools
Risk Reduction Tools The process to create a new product has risk. There are safety, technical, schedule and financial risks The risk of product failing more often then deemed acceptable by the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Assess Your Reliability Program
How to Assess Your Reliability Program “How do you know so much about our program?” was a question the quality manager asked after reading the assessment report. The assessment took one day with eight...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When to conduct HALT?
When to do HALT HALT (highly accelerated life testing) is a method to reveal product weaknesses. Design prototypes experience step-stress application of relevant stresses until failures appear. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When to do FMEA
When to do FMEA Failure modes and effect analysis is a tool to identify potential failures and prioritize based on severity, occurrence and detection. I like to describe FMEA as an organized...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When to do a reliability prediction
How often does your team make reliability predictions? The easy answer is very often. Each time you want to know how long a product will operate. The accompanying question on how well the estimate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to break into Reliability Engineering
The Expanded Reliability Engineering Resume I’ve recently received a couple of notes from individuals looking at starting a career in reliability engineering. One is a student looking at a career...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The True Importance of Reliability Block Diagrams
The True Importance of Reliability Block Diagrams A reliability block diagram is a graphical and statistical representation of the reliability structure of a system. Graphical as an RBD is drawn with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability Engineering is More Than Tools
Reliability Engineering is More Than Tools Reliability engineering is blend of disciplines from material science to asset management. We use problem solving, design, maintenance, and statistical tools...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Connect Reliability Goals to Business Objectives
How to connect reliability goals to business objectives Reliability goals provide you and your team a focus for the reliability program. They provide a measurable way to design, test, and maintain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Steps to Improve Supplier Reliability
Consider the Impact Suppliers Have on Product Reliability ]1 ELEPHANT’S TEA PARTY, ROBUR TEA ROOM, 24 MARCH 1939, BY SAM HOOD Situation It’s Friday afternoon and the phone rings. It is another customer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Consider Variation for Reliable Designs
Reliable Products Accommodate Variability By Design The better reliability performing systems start the design process with controlling variability. Variability of materials and processes involved...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Purpose of Tolerances
Why Do tolerance Analysis? The short answer is, everything varies. The longer answer involves the agreement between what is possible and what is desired. If we could design a product and it could be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2 Design Approaches to Creating a Reliable Product
Design Approaches to Creating a Reliable Product There are two basic philosophies when creating a reliability plan for a a new product or system. One is to experiment with prototypes as quickly and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Minimize Supply Chain Failure Causes
Supply Chain and Reliability What happens when a product you produce fails? You customer may call and return the product. They may expect you to provide a replacement or refund. Does it matter if the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Want of Modern Customer Service
Reliability and Customer Service As reliability professionals know, products fail. They fail for a wide range of reasons and over broad span of time. We know it happens. This doesn’t help when it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
3 Supply Chain Caused Failures
3 Stories of Electronics Supply Chain Reliability Impact Some days are better than others. We sometimes run into failure when working to create a new product. With a little investigation we suspect...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Meaning of a Failure
Meaning of a failure Every failure provides information. It provides time to failure, stress strength relationship, process stability and design margin types of information. In every case. Even...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Select Tasks for a Reliability Plan
How to select tasks for a reliability plan There are a lot of reliability tools. From FMEA to FTA, from ALT to HALT, from derating to sneak circuit analysis. We also have a lot of acronyms. We cannot...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Understanding Customer Reliability Expectations
Customer Expectations Once asked a customer what they wanted concerning product reliability. She fully understood that some units will fail, that it’s matter of chance. She seemed understanding of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Function: A Reliability View
Function(s) We need to understand what a product should do when working to be able to detect when it has failed. When a function does not perform as expected that is a failure. Two Concepts There are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Use Profile and the Reliability Definition
Use Profile How a customer uses a product matters. It matters in the amount and type of stress your product receives. It determines the life span. Someone that uses the product often isn’t necessarily...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Environment Element of Reliability Goal
Environment This element of a reliability requirement answers the questions of where and under what conditions the product should operate. It includes storage, transportation, and installation...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Probability and Reliability Goals
Probability Roll the dice. It is about that simple if any one product will survive to a specific time. Every product has a chance not a guarantee. The time to failure for each product is a function of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Duration and Reliability Goals
Duration Coupled with probability is the duration over which the probability applies. For example, if we desire 99 of 100 to survive, we must state over which period of time this applies. It is proper...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Purpose of a Reliability Program
Purpose of a Reliability Program The reliable performance of a system is important. It is important to the customer, to our business and to us. Very few argue that we should ignore the reliability...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5 Steps to Create a Reliability Plan
Reliability Planning A specific reliability plan may include any number of specific tasks. To build an effective plan you need the knowledge of the individual tools and techniques, plus how they may...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Uncovering Hidden Field Failure Problems
How to Prevent Customers from Finding Reliability Issues A reliable product does not fail often. Customers expect to a level of reliability performance and failures that occurs too early dash their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is this FMEA good?
Thoughts on Judging an FMEA Study It is rare that a third party generated FMEA/FMECA has any value. The development or manufacturing teams and supporting staff should comprise the bulk of the study’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What to Specify with Supplier to Achieve Reliability Goals
Supplier Reliability Case Selecting as supplier for components or subsystems involved many aspects including the desired reliability performance. Once selected the ability of the supplier to provide...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability Questions to Ask During a Review
Reliability Questions to Ask During a Review Asking the right question is important. During a review meeting (informal or formal) asking a few reliability questions may reveal weaknesses, strengths,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Be Deliberately Proactive
How to Be Deliberately Proactive It is not enough to simply state your organization has a proactive stance concerning reliability. It more than running a few tests or thinking about reliability before...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability Questions for the Drone Industry
Exploring Drone Reliability FPV quadcopter by Steve Lodefink In a few Twitter conversations I’ve learned about the perceived lack of reliability of commercially available quadcopter or drones. And,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability and Worst Case Analysis
Worst-Case Tolerance Analysis Worst-case tolerance analysis is the starting point when creating a tolerance specification. It is a conservative approach as it only considers the maximum or minimum...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability and Root Sum Squared Tolerances
Root Sum Squared Method The root sum squared (RSS) method is a statistical tolerance analysis method. In many cases the actual individual part dimensions fall near the center of the tolerance range...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability and Monte Carlo Determined Tolerances
Monte Carlo Method In the Monte Carlo method one uses the idea that not all parts have the same dimensions, yet a normal distribution describing the variation of the part dimensions is not assumed....
View ArticleClik here to view.
When to Stop Testing
When to Stop Testing Stop testing when the testing provides no value. If no one is going to review the results or use the information to make a decisions, those are good signs that the testing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is Environmental Testing Part of Product Reliability?
Is Environmental Testing Part of Product Reliability? Environmental testing is the evaluation of a product or system in one or more stress conditions. Environmental as in that which surrounds and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meditation and Design for Reliability
Design for Reliability is More Than a Set of Tasks Is it possible for an individual to ‘do’ DFR? Is design for reliability something, like a specific technique, that is DFR? What is DFR and how would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can a Product Have Perfect Reliability?
What Happens When a Product Lasts Too Long? In the poem by Oliver Wendall Holmes, The One Hoss Shay, a deacon is confounded by the various parts of his carriage the fail. And, he decides to do...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Encourage the Use of Statistics
How to Encourage the Use of Statistics If nothing was random we would not need statistics. Since nearly everything varies in some fashion, we need a way to describe and work with that variability. We...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Basic Approaches to Life Testing
Life testing My introduction to reliability engineering was my boss asking me to sort out how long a new product will last in use. The expectation was it would last for 20 years or more buried in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ready, Fire, Aim Reliability Goal Setting
Ready, Fire, Aim Reliability Goal Setting “Keeping the end in mind”, “working toward a common objective” and “providing a vision” are all convention management wisdom based on setting goals. Seeing a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Considerations When Setting a Reliability Goal
Considerations When Setting a Reliability Goal Setting a reliability goal is more than selecting and number and duration that would be nice to achieve. Sure, 98% reliable over 5 years may be the right...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability Specifications and Requirements
Specifications and Requirements The communication between suppliers or vendors and their customers is often using mix of specifications and requirements. Customers set requirements and suppliers offer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Supplier Reliability Program Maturity
Supplier Reliability Program Maturity It was late Friday afternoon and the phone rang. Which is rarely a good thing. Their seems to a significant spike in field failures due to one component. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Supply Chain Process Control and Capability
Process Control and Capability If you buy more than one of an item used in your product, you will have to deal with variability. In general, the variability from part to part is minimal and expected....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Life Estimates Based on Supplier Data
Life Estimates Based on Supplier Data Suppliers often include reliability information along with performance specifications. We look for reliability statements as one part of the selection process to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mechanical Systems Accelerated Life or Reliability Testing
Mechanical Systems Accelerated Life or Reliability Testing Mechanical systems wear out and fail eventually. The ability of a structure to support a load, move though the specified range of motion, or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reliability Benefits of Alpha and Beta Testing
Alpha/beta testing Your customers are you best testers for your next product. They will explore the features. Expose the product to use conditions in unconscious ways. And, they will let you what they...
View ArticleFailure Analysis: The Key to Learning From Failure
Failure Analysis: The Key to Learning From Failure Why do so many avoid failure? In product development of plant asset management, we are surrounded by people that steadfastly do not want to know about...
View Article
