No MTBF Success Story Challenge

Last year I offered a coveted NoMTBF coffee mug to the most traffic generating guest post.

This year, my challenge is for the best success story around your efforts to reduce or eliminate MTBF from use in your organization.

The basic idea is we all have a role to play to clean up the reliability profession. Using clear language is a start. Avoiding the mis-understanding around MTBF is a great start. If we all do something, great or small, toward the goal of eradicating MTBF we all benefit.

So, in 500 words or less, what have you done that has been successful around removing MTBF (or similar MTxx measures) from your organization or industry?

Please send me you entry by May 1st, 2014 and I’ll select the top 3 and publish them for this audience to vote on the best story. The winner will receive the coveted NoMTBF coffee mug.

Be creative, tell the complete story and include your role in getting the desired results.

While not in the story format this idea came from conversations of work being done along the same lines. Grundfos has an interesting MTBF generator page. And Ed Tinsley of Dell created and shares an excellent presentation about why to avoid using MTBF. I’ve heard of company policies, contract templates, changes in product requirements documents, and other things you are doing.

Whether or not you add a story to the list of successes, keep up the great work while improving how we all communicate about reliability.