Articles

Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

DORT: Design of Ongoing Reliability Tests

Ongoing Reliability Testing (ORT) is a way to estimate reliability function, as a function of independent variables, primarily age. This is because reliability is “the probability of successful function to specified ages under specified conditions” [O’Connor et al.].

Think of planning ORT as a design of an experiment (DoE). A DoE objective is to quantify effects of factors (independent variables) on the dependent variable, the reliability function. (The reliability and failure rate functions contain the same information, because reliability = P[Life > t] = exp[–∫a(u)du], where a(u) denotes the failure rate function and the integral runs from 0 to t.)

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

Understanding the Importance of Operating Context in RCM

In this video, we dive into the significance of operating context when identifying proactive maintenance tasks for your equipment. Have you ever considered how the operating environment impacts maintenance strategies? Using the example of our metal building, we explore how factors like temperature and operational conditions can drastically affect maintenance tasks and intervals. 🔍 Discover how we determine the operating environment in Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) analysis, including:

Equipment location and usage frequency
Operational demands and circumstances
The role of redundancy

We also discuss how operating context influences not only maintenance strategies but also other important failure management strategies, such as emergency procedures and equipment redesigns.

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Process Capability Analysis: Cp, Cpk, Sigma Level

Dear friends, we are happy to release this video on Process Capability. this is our 93rd video! In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe, Fellow of ASQ, explains the basic concepts of process capability indices Cp and Cpk with an illustrative example. Hemant has also explained how to validate whether the data is normally distributed with histogram and normal probability plotting. Hemant has further explained the interpretation of the results of study and suggested improvement actions.

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by George Williams Leave a Comment

Team Building: Creating Cohesive and Effective Teams

Building a strong, unified team takes more than just hiring the right people; it takes leadership, accountability, and a shared vision.

In this video, George Williams, Founder & CEO of Reliability X, breaks down what it takes to bring a team together and keep them moving toward the same goals. From setting the example as a leader to coaching team members toward success, these insights will help you create a workplace where people collaborate, support one another, and grow together.

You’ll learn:

How leadership shapes team dynamics
Why coaching and influence matter in building a strong team
The role of accountability in teamwork • Practical ways to get everyone engaged and involved

If you’re ready to build a team that truly works together, watch now and start making tomorrow better than today.

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by Christopher Jackson 2 Comments

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) – More Than Just a Diagram

If you Google ‘fault tree analysis’ (which I know you probably haven’t), you’ll get a horrible definition that goes something like …

… a fault tree is a deductive failure analysis tool that uses Boolean logic to combine a series of lower-level events to understand the probability of a top-level system failure …

This is technically correct. Unfortunately, definitions like this don’t really help anyone. They make fault tree analysis or ‘FTA’ sound like some abstract math exercise, when in practice, fault trees are one of the most practical and human-friendly tools we have to help solve a huge range of engineering and manufacturing problems. At their core, fault trees are a way of collecting our thoughts, visualizing brainstorming sessions, and structuring messy ideas in a way that helps us make sense of what starts out as being hugely complex problems.

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by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

A Life Data Analysis Challenge

Here is a Challenge: Life Data Analysis

Some years ago a few colleagues compared notes on results of a Weibull analysis. Interesting we all started with the same data and got different results.

After a recent article on the many ways to accomplish data analysis, Larry mentioned that all one needs is shipments and returns to perform field data analysis.

This got me thinking: What are our common methods and sets of results when we perform life data analysis? [Read more…]

by Semion Gengrinovich Leave a Comment

Duty Cycle in Depth

The duty cycle of a fuel cell engine, particularly in the context of acceleration and deceleration of a vehicle, is a critical aspect that influences the performance, efficiency, and longevity of the fuel cell system. Understanding the effects of these dynamic conditions on fuel cell engines is essential for optimizing their operation and addressing potential challenges.

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by Greg Hutchins Leave a Comment

Project Documents: Obviously Wrong or Patently Acceptable

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

Project documentation; the bane of some people’s lives, for other’s their raison d’être. Documentation is essential and its written word can ensure effective communication so there is as little misunderstanding as possible. Requirements will be definitive, obligations and liabilities will be unambiguous, and instructions will be clear.

Projects typically require plans and processes as well as details of products and services and methodologies for contemporaneous purposes. They contribute to corporate knowledge, assist with learning lessons and may defend any liability. Documents are usually subject to some form of acceptance, approval, non-objection or similar.

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by Mike Sondalini Leave a Comment

Reliability Growth Cause Analysis Tutorial

Improved reliability has a cause. Just like a failure has a cause, so too is there a cause for improved reliability. You can wait for a failure to happen and then learn from the experience and change your processes to prevent it. That is root cause failure analysis. But it is not proactive behaviour. Such an approach quickly buries you in firefighting. It helps you fix a few terrible failures, but not the tens of thousands of defects that are waiting to create the next lot of disasters. Permanent reliability growth requires proactive methodologies that identify all potential problems and stops them from starting. This is what is done in high reliability operations – they never allow defects to begin.

The process maps of your business processes, the workflow diagrams of your operating procedures and the bills of materials for your equipment are the foundation documents for improving equipment reliability. They are used respectively to control the business processes, to control human error and to address limitations in materials of construction and parts’ health practices.

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by Hemant Urdhwareshe Leave a Comment

Design for Reliability Overview

Dear friends, this is a quick overview of the Design for Relliability (DFR) strategy.

For details of the tools and techniques shown in the video, we are providing links to our videos Links to some related videos:

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by Nancy Regan Leave a Comment

What You Don’t Know About RCM May Change Everything

True or False? Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) produces more than just a Proactive Maintenance Plan. In this short video, we explore the broader benefits of RCM! Discover how a Facilitated Working Group approach empowers equipment experts to identify vulnerabilities, known as Failure Modes, and develop effective solutions that go beyond traditional maintenance strategies. From new operating procedures to equipment redesigns, RCM can drive meaningful improvements across your organization.

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by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

The Rivian Paradox

High customer satisfaction with low reliability (is reliability still important?)

Most customers aren’t happy with products that break down a lot.

Product unreliability has been behind a lot of losses, cancellations and bankruptcies. A great example is the Yugo – a small, inexpensive car from the former Yugoslavia that gained notoriety in the 1980s and 1990s. It was about half as expensive as similar cars when it hit the US market. And despite a lot of initial ‘excited’ purchasers, it simply stopped selling when people realized how comically unreliable and unsafe it was.

Now there is Rivian. When Rivian burst onto the electric vehicle (EV) scene, it quickly gained a devoted following. The Rivian R1T truck and R1S SUV were praised for their funky designs and innovative features. Owners and enthusiasts love the company’s approach to off-road lifestyles, reinforced by early partnerships with Amazon and promises of building a nationwide ‘outdoor-centric’ charging network.

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by Ayaz Bayramov Leave a Comment

You Don’t Need (More) Reliability Engineers

Generally speaking, pushing value through functional silos usually creates inefficiencies, low buy-in, and a lack of ownership. Resistance to change is almost guaranteed, not to mention the problems caused by missed or poor communication. The same applies to reliability engineering activities during product or process development, which often face strong resistance from design teams, to say the least.

In my 12 years of reliability experience, I’ve seen that reliability engineering is often viewed as just another function — another group asking designers to do extra work because their “baby” (design) is “ugly.” This mindset exists largely because traditional engineering education focuses more on how things function given the boundary conditions, not how they degrade, specifically, how they degrade over time. Let me explain.

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Listening with Intent: The Missing Skill in Design Thinking

Of the many constructive soft skills, active listening is surely one of the most helpful in the design thinking process. More than just listening to collect information, active listening is a mindset that fosters empathy for the speaker. In business and engineering, it’s our customer that’s speaking. Active listening seeks to understand not only the other person’s words, but also their attitudes and motivations.

For many people, even the idea of “being a better listener” seems ludicrous. Once you’re listening, how can you listen better? It’s like swallowing better or breathing better. [But the truth is, you can.] Even the best listeners periodically fall into a handful of traps that obstruct their understanding of their employer’s, customer’s, and loved one’s words.

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by Fred Schenkelberg 8 Comments

10 Reasons to Avoid MTBF

“Why do you avoid MTBF?”

I got this question the other day. The person knew about the NoMTBF campaign. They didn’t quite understand why it was a big deal, especially for me, to avoid MTBF.

The tiff between MTBF and myself is not personal. The metric has not been a part of my work or caused any significant problems for me personally.

It has caused problems that have caused problems for my enjoyment of products and systems though. It has lead to poor decisions by many organizations that create items I and you use on a regular basis.

We can do better than to settle with the use of MTBF in our own work or in the work of those around us. Here are 10 reasons I recommend you avoid using MTBF.

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