Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
All articles listed in reverse chronological order.
Quality issues have been on my mind a lot lately, specifically some of the more frustrating things that I’ve had to deal with during my career as a quality manager.
In my last job, my team was responsible for managing the discrepant material review (DMR) process for our US-based factory.
The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy conducted an Energy Storage Reliability Workshop this week provide a unique glimpse at how the stakeholders across an industry view reliability.
The representatives from government and private sector, including national labs, large and small companies, insurers and consultants gather to talk about the reliability of large-scale stationary energy storage systems.
Specifically, the focus of the workshop was on helping the DOE identify the specific activities and focus for their involvement in this relatively new industry segment.
[Read more…]
Why Do Reliability TestingReliability testing is expensive. The results are often not conclusive.
Yet we spend billions on environmental, accelerated, growth, step stress and other types of reliability tests. We bake, shake, rattle and roll prototypes and production units alike. We examine the collected data in hopes of glimpsing the future. [Read more…]
Do you replace your car headlights at regular intervals of six months? Do you wait to replace your tires until they wear through? Do you check your car engine oil with some sort of oil analysis before replacing it? Each component and system in your car has a function that is prone to failure. Each of those has consequences – some with little importance and others with great importance. [Read more…]
Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
Risk management involves the identification of risks, prioritization of the risks based on probability of occurrence and impact of occurrence, and mitigation plans to control the risks. Once identified and prioritized the question then becomes which risks should be incorporated into the schedule and which ones should be included in the risk register?
The general rule of thumb I have used requires risks with a 50% or greater probability of occurrence to be incorporated into the schedule. The other risks are entered into the risk register. [Read more…]
What you will learn from this article.
Every failure is part of a puzzle. The equipment we are maintaining is trying to communicate with the use of each and every failure.
Often the message is not obvious.
There is the immediate failure. And, if we’re paying attention we can sort out the root cause of the failure along with replacing or repairing the damaged parts. Sometimes though the damage is caused by another issue with the system. [Read more…]
One aspect of creating a new product or system is the sourcing of parts, components, and materials.
Gone are the days of your organization providing every element of the final product. Henry Ford’s supply chain for early Ford automobiles includes their own forests, rubber plantations, and iron ore mines. [Gelderman, 1981]
We increasingly rely on the supply chain to create the necessary parts for the design’s functionality. Then to continue to supply those same parts for decades, in some cases. [Read more…]
As reliability engineers, we have a large number of tools available.
From project planning, system modeling, data analysis, test planning, to risk identification and defect discovery, we have techniques, procedures, algorithms to help us identify and solve reliability problems.
We also may ways to apply an individual reliability task.
We could do an exploratory drop test to see what happens if anything. Or, we could conduct a full characterization study of the force signature of drops onto different surfaces and faces from a range of heights. Or something in-between.
We have options and thus need to make choices. [Read more…]
How to Properly Calculate System AvailabilityRecently received a request for my opinion concerning the calculation of system availability using the classic formula
$latex \displaystyle&s=4 A=\frac{MTBF}{MTBF+MTTR}$
The work is to create a set of goals for various suppliers and contractors to achieve. The calculation values derive from vendor data sheets and available information concerning MTBF and MTTR. The project is in the design phase thus they do not have working system’s available to measure actual availability.
How would you go about improving on this approach? [Read more…]
What you will learn from this article:
Guest Post by Greg Hutchins (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
When evaluating risk response strategies, executive management along with process owners must align risk responses with the organization’s risk appetite, business objectives, costs/benefits, and overall risk strategy/tactics. Risk response strategies and tactics may involve: [Read more…]
Let’s face it, your technicians have been entering data into the CMMS for years, but you haven’t been able to use it to make improvements. Is it because the data isn’t codified or it doesn’t have the right data points? Generally, this is how most maintenance managers will view their data, but it is incorrect. The CMMS does have data that you can use almost immediately. [Read more…]
Software elements of a product or system take time to create. Thus re-using blocks of code developed for previous applications may save on development time. [Read more…]
A fault tree analysis (FTA) is a logical, graphical diagram that starts with an unwanted, undesirable, or anomalous state of a system.
The diagram then lays out the many possible faults and combination of faults within the subsystems, components, assemblies, software, and parts comprising the system which may lead to the top level unwanted fault condition. [Read more…]