on Product Reliability

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:

Kirk Grey — Accelerated Reliability series

Les Warrington — Achieving the Benefits of Reliability series

Adam Bahret — Apex Ridge series

Michael Pfeifer — Metals Engineering and Product Reliability series

Fred Schenkelberg — Musings on Reliability and Maintenance series

Arthur Hart — Reliability Engineering Insights series

Chris Jackson — Reliability in Emerging Technology series

by Fred Schenkelberg 5 Comments

Starting a Career in Reliability Engineering

Reliability engineers all have a start.

A point zero.

The transition point from pursuing something else, or nothing at all, then we begin our journey as a reliability engineering professional.

Getting started can be difficult and at times overwhelming.

Then you find Accendo Reliability and there is a lot of great content, maybe too much. So, this short article has the intent to create a starting point for you.

Plus, for those well along in their career, a request.

What is your advice to those just starting their career? My plan is to gather the advice from this community and assembly a start here guide just for those just starting their career.

Leave a comment below with your words of wisdom. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Guiding Programs by Product Goals

A term that I use when describing product goals that are tangible and drive program decisions is “Product Asset.”

A Product Asset is “a fundamental attribute of a product that can be characterized as a quantitative measurable goal.”

The five Product Assets that I commonly select are the following:

technology features
reliability/quality
time to market
product cost
development program cost (considered an anchor asset)

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

5 Ways You Know a Reliability Program is Working

When your reliability program is working well, it may be difficult to recognize the benefits incurred.

Likewise, when the program is not working, it is obvious.

As you work to improve your program, keep in mind you may need to include elements to ensure your efforts remain visible.

I don’t mean staging field issues that you can solve quickly, rather that you are able to show the impact you and your program make to the organization. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret 1 Comment

ESS and HASS

Two of the most common acronyms used regarding manufacturing screening processes are ESS and HASS.

ESS stands for “Environmental Stress Screening” and HASS stands for “Highly Accelerated Stress Screening.” [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Reliability Questions to Ask Your Suppliers

Here’s a question for you: Do you ask your suppliers the right questions concerning reliability?

Probably not.

If you are getting the right information from your suppliers, then you would enjoy few supplier related field issues, or as little downtime or low warranty costs.

Asking the right set of questions will help you gain the understanding you need to improve your reliability performance. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

The Side Swipe (part 2): A Surge in Technology Growth

It’s no longer an option to be the strong household name brand in an industry.

You have to expand your technology capabilities to stay in the market.

There are product lines that have had a consistent core technology for long periods of time.

Companies that are leaders in these are “the experts” and they hold maximum market share because the customers know what brand to buy if they want the best.

But if there is a sudden change in the technology, then that “bulletproof” brand name can be tarnished in one product cycle.

What if the core technology suddenly changes to include new electronics or software controls or something we would never have imagined.

The competitors are about to gain market share based on feature add, sometimes “jumped into the future” feature add; The iPad, Tesla electric vehicles, Tesla assisted autonomous driving, smartphone, Solid State memory, automotive electronic fuel injection, jet engines, desktop printer – this is a “Side Swipe”. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Rewards and Incentives Have an Impact On Reliability

A maxim of business management is to measure what is important.

The focus on aligning metrics, rewards, and incentives is not a new concept. Many businesses create target focused incentives with the expectation it will assist achieving those important business goals.

In many cases, simply monitoring a metric improve the team’s ability to achieve a specific goal.

In some cases, though, achieving the goal and associated incentive has an associated negative impact on the business.

If you offer a bonus for a short-term behavior or goal and offer nothing to balance with the long-term impact.

Your incentive may actually damage your business in the long term. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

The Side Swipe: When Innovation is your Wheelhouse

Many companies achieve great success based on their ability to create, invent, and develop a technology.

If this is the dominant focus of their product development programs they will maintain a high market share by continuing to be cutting edge.

These industries and technologies are highly competitive with respect to new features and functionality for a period of time, but the growth of any specific technology slows as it matures.

When this occurs, customers begin to put more weight on cost point and reliability when deciding which model or brand to purchase.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Are Prototypes Useful for Reliability Estimates

Prototypes are precious items. A vendor sample or beta version of factory parts may provide necessary insights.

They are not real though.

The prototypes and samples we hold, admire, examine and test are just a representation of the final product or system.

It is extremely rare we will learn exactly what we need to know with these few items. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

The Role of Legends in Your Reliability Program

One of my favorite things to do when visiting a new company, it at lunch or during a break, ask:

“Any major disasters that impacted reliability?”

Typically, there are three stories that start with, “Remember the… “, or, “One time…”

It seems every organization has legendary stories in the organizational memory. [Read more…]

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

What do these products have in common?

Bulletproof!

It is a very conscious decision to have reliability be a part of your products brand.

What conversations with marketing and the leadership have occurred for your next product development program?

Was there a conscious decision to place your product in a certain range of reliability?

Too many times it’s a discussion that happens as the product is reaching it’s Beta stage of development, “Let’s measure its reliability and see where it’s at and if we need to improve it”.

You can measure reliability that late in the game but you have little opportunity to change it. So what if it is far lower than the product target market expects?

What if it is far overbuilt and millions of dollars of cost savings were missed in this first generation of the design?

It happens this way more than not. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

What I’ve Learned from You

Upon my son’s return from studying abroad for a semester, I asked him what he learned. He said there are a lot of smart people in the world.

I concur. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Design of Experiments and Reliability

During the design phase, we make decisions that create the eventual reliability performance of a product.

It is the decisions we make that matter.

Also during the design phase, we explore numerous questions. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Overview of Reliability Engineering

An Overview of Reliability Engineering Tasks and Application from a Product Design and Plant Operation Perspective

A Guest Post by Lennox Bennett

Abstract / Summary

In deciding what industry you want to work as a reliability engineer, it is always good to have an understanding of what functional responsibilities you are expected to execute as a part of the job function.

You should always carefully review the job description then compare your knowledge acquired through training and on-the-job experience and ask yourself if you are capable of performing functions required without additional training.

Furthermore, we need to consider our technical limitations and at the same time be aware that the job description provided may not exclusive represents all the tasks you are expected to perform. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Taking a break — back in September

It’s been almost a year since launching Accendo Reliability. It’s been fun, exciting, and weekly.

Love it and really enjoy helping you answer questions, get stuff done, and master reliability engineering.

Since my wife and I just bought a house (out playing Pokemon Go when we stopped for an open house – and a week later our offer was accepted). Now we’re preparing to move ourselves to our new home.

There is a lot involved. [Read more…]