Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

All articles listed in reverse chronological order.

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Influencing the Organization

Influencing the Organization

It can be hard as a reliability engineer to influence the greater organization.  Reliability engineers have that awkward dynamic of not just executing the tools they are expert in but directing others to incorporate them into their own process.  If the perception is that reliability engineers only instruct others what to do, like a coach, then the perception may be that “they don’t have skin in the game”. If they take complete ownership of reliability activities the effectiveness of any tools influence on the product greatly diminishes. “DfR principle #1, You can’t “Design for Reliability” if the design team isn’t using reliability tools in the design process.

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FMEA Q and A – Auditing FMEAs

FMEA Q and A – Auditing FMEAs

FMEA Q and A

One of the more important topics in the FMEA body of knowledge is how to audit the effectiveness of FMEAs. Performing FMEAs properly and to a high quality standard is essential to obtaining the best possible results. This FMEA Q and A goes to the heart of FMEA effectiveness audits.

“Without a good question, a good answer has no place to go.”
Clayton Christensen

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Using a Design FMEA

How Building Reliability Into The Equipment Design Will Dramatically Improve Your Profitability

14302508349_bc9deda8dc_zProducts and equipment start with a design. The functions and performance occur or do not occur according to the capabilities designed into the system.

I learned early in my career, as a manufacturing engineer, that some products were much easier to manufacture (less yield loss) ten others, and it was often the design of the product that made the difference.

I also learned that once we purchased and installed factory equipment it was very difficult to improve the reliability performance. [Read more…]

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Baldrige Criteria Poses Challenges to the Quality Profession

Baldrige Criteria Poses Challenges to the Quality Profession

Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

The title may sound strange given the Baldrige’s origin as the U.S. National Quality Award.   Yet, its migration to a Performance Excellence Criteria and the addition of Cyber Security, Innovation, and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) does pose challenges to the quality profession.  This is particularly true since the many of the Baldrige examiners are quality professionals. [Read more…]

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The Importance of Laughter in the Workplace!

The Importance of Laughter in the Workplace!

I’m laughing at work! At the same time, I’m shaking my head and smiling because I’m sitting alone at my computer working on developing some maintenance plans for one of our customers. Strange as it might seem the laughter was brought on by a social media notification that today is the birthday of an old friend. Someone I used to work with, and thinking about this person I remembered all the laughs our group shared at work. [Read more…]

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The forever outfit, and a car for “right now”

The forever outfit, and a car for “right now”

I didn’t create this image but I thought it was an interesting idea. A consumer has captured  a niche group of manufactures that are basing their brand on “service for life.”  The forever outfit.

I saw this the same day that Tesla came out with their semi truck announcement.  A few things that caught my attention from that announcement was how they emphasized reliability and low maintenance in their product profile.  “The brake pads will last forever” and “The drivetrain has a 1 million mile warranty.”

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Understanding FMEA Controls – Part 2

Understanding FMEA Controls – Part 2

Problems and Solutions

In this article, we use problems and solutions to learn about FMEA controls. In the intermediate problem, we continue examining the door latch-pin failure of the DC-10 cargo door, as an example to identify FMEA controls. In the advanced problem, we analyze a fictitious FMEA relating to potential safety of someone trying to unjam a snowblower.

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Incorporating Reliability into Your Future

How Building Reliability Into The Equipment Design Will Dramatically Improve Your Profitability

6191850831_876eee6baf_zOften time’s equipment is procured, setup and put into operation with a single focus on reducing the initial capital expenditure.  This can be a fatal mistake as the reliability of the equipment is built into the design of the equipment.  This called the inherent reliability.  Once the equipment is designed and installed, there is little the maintenance department can do to improve the inherent reliability. [Read more…]

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Autonomous Vehicles and Safety – Why Industry has Every Right to Not Wait for Regulatory and Academic Leadership to Arise

Autonomous Vehicles and Safety – Why Industry has Every Right to Not Wait for Regulatory and Academic Leadership to Arise

What are legislators, regulators and academics doing to help the introduction of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)? I don’t know either.

One of the sessions of the 2017 Autonomous Vehicle Safety Regulation World Congress that was held in Novi, Michigan, was devoted to ethics. The idea is that AVs must be taught what to do when death is unavoidable (hold that thought). That is, if an accident is imminent, does the AV kill the old lady or the three-month-old baby? Does the AV protect the driver or others around it? Many media outlets, journals and blogs emphasize this conundrum. The MIT Review published Why Self Driving Cars Must be Programmed to Kill where it discussed the behaviors that need to be embedded into AVs to control casualties. Some of you may be familiar with MIT’s Moral Machine which is an online survey aimed at understanding what the public thinks AVs should do in the event of an accident that involves fatalities.

But this discussion has conveniently hurdled the question – do AVs need to be programmed to kill? Because the answer is absolutely not. There is no compelling argument for anyone to expect manufacturers to design this sort of capability into their vehicles. In fact, it is likely going to make matters worse.

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Top Down or Bottom Up – The Dilemma of Continuous Improvement

Top Down or Bottom Up – The Dilemma of Continuous Improvement

I’m sure you have all heard the phrase I wish I had a nickel for every time someone asked me this question.  If you follow LinkedIn at all someone poses this question to anyone willing to answer at least once a day and as a result they get opinions that list the benefits of a Top Down or Bottom Up continuous improvement process. [Read more…]

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Is This The Same As That?

Is This The Same As That?

A common tool for comparing if two populations are the same is the “student t-test.”  This is often used in reliability, and science, if we want to investigate if a factor has caused a change in a respnse.

A population was assembled in location “A”.  Another population was assembled in location “B”.  Population “A” has an average defect rate of 4%.  Population “B” has an average defect rate of 5.5%. Does the location of assembly affect defect rate?  That’s just a big argument unless we can project the statistical likelihood that what we have measured is not just an overlap of noise. [Read more…]