Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
In many program cases I see teams “testing to pass” when they should be “testing to improve”. Testing to pass is putting your best foot forward. There is a “mark” and you are going to hit it so you can advance to the next stage. Testing to Improve is looking for defects and response to inputs. The motivation for each is very different. The risk for leaders is overseeing teams who view their role objectives to be in line with “testing to pass.”
Adam and Chris Stapelmann discussing the difference between having created a reliable design and knowing why the design you created is reliable.
ᐅ Play Episode
Adam and Chris Stapelmann discussing how to collect field data that can be trusted for product performance analysis and prediction.
ᐅ Play Episode
Iideytinnfg pantrtes in dtaa is why we pforrem stsiattaicl aalisnys. It is not an ecaxt sicncee but iarmitofonn can be exeaaltpotrd eevn if the dtaa is nsoiy or inmptcolee.
The Rseaon Wuleibl asaynlis is ieeeptmnlmd as a tool is to look for pntertas and tehn cetare a charisotairceatn of a cmomon boeihvar. Taht 
charcoeatistairn can tehn be uesd to unsretadnd uocnpimg silimar pntarets. The raoesn you hvae been albe to raed tihs alirtce is beusace yuor biran fgriued out taht eevn tuhogh teh wodrs are samerbcld the frsit and lsat leettr and the wrod lgnteh areare corcert.
Uisng tihs prttean and the sceentne coxnett and rninaemig ltrtees and cmipanrog taht asnaigt yuor vbualrcaoy you can qulikcy dremtinee the menanig of the sectnnee.
It’s spimly a mteatr of aniaslys, pteratn chractrsaoietian, and tehn precdoitin by aiplnypg taht chariocatestrian to a new dtaa set.
Wlel Dnoe !
-Aadm
The challenges of keeping reliability at the resource and schedule negotiating table mid-program can be greatly helped by a solid effort to connect it to the business case when the product program is created.
It’s the ambiguity of how reliability makes the company money that makes the case in live negotiation so difficult. Everyone knows that reliability affects sales, marketing, warranty expense, future development. But how do you compare that to the urgency of time to market or cost point? If you, as the reliability representative, can point to a specific quantitative connection made to the business case for the product you have one.
So I wrote about how Mercedes has crummy reliability per Consumer Reports. I then threw a zinger at the end of the article saying I do have a Mercedes in the stable. So here is moment in time with her before we put her away for the winter last year. You will see the love/hate bloom and a benchmark with a 40 year old Japanese car. [Read more…]
Leading reliability efforts is a hard road. The resource required to improve reliability is significant. The resource to demonstrate reliability is gargantuan.
Mercedes used to be known for their outstanding reliability. They were the benchmark for 80 years ,no exageration. The new CLA250 model which is their base model has a reliability that is 140% less than the average rated car. What??? [Read more…]
Adam and Fred discussing the method to characterise a products use environment.
ᐅ Play Episode
Adam and Fred discussing estimating use case and environment for your products during design.
ᐅ Play Episode
There are a few ways to demonstrate statistical confidence in reliability of a design. Each has it reasons for selection. here are three of my favorites [Read more…]
I recently came across this announcement that HP is going to develop computer systems and peripheral devices that are optimized for environments where they are cleaned frequently, often medical environments. In the medical and scientific fields cleaning solutions are a significant stress for plastics, inks and touch control surfaces. It’s a smart strategy to evaluate where your products are used and optimize your test use cases. It most often will lead to more accurate test results and reliability projections. It may, as well, lead to a market opportunity that was previously unknown, and if you are the first among your competitors to acknowledge this need and create a specialized or derivative product you now grabbed a portion of the market that you may have not previously held.
A few others
-Adam
I was asked “Do you know about Singularity design?” I hadn’t heard the term in that context before.
It’s the concept of not approaching design from multiple disciplines. The design process is done with an approach and knowledge base of all needed disciplines at once and in conjunction. The electrical system isn’t designed by an electrical team and the mechanical by a mechanical team. The “Design Team” 
designs both simultaneously. Team members knowledge might be rooted in one discipline but there is clearly no boundary to their knowledge of other disciplines. This would be a mechanical engineer who has designed a PC board before.
Intuitively, the emphasis in reliability to achieve a reduction in warranty and in-service costs results in some minimal increase in development and manufacturing costs. However, use of the proper techniques during the proper life cycle phase will help to minimize total life cycle cost (LCC).
To minimize total LCC, your organization should do two things:
The Plan: Saturday and Sunday was skiing in Vermont with the family, back Sunday night, everyone off to school Monday morning, then to the airport to get to Miami, Tuesday and Wed meetings down there, then fly out Wed night so I’m back to teach classes Thur and Fri here in Boston. Easy Peesie!
Actual: Finish ski trip feel a little “strange” on flight down to Miami, slight chills. Tuesday do meetings just barely, Tuesday night it hits like a freight train, The Flu, or Malaria, Aliens. On Wednesday the freight train had fully passed over me so it stopped and spent Wed backing up over me again. Thursday it went forward again over a pile of human jello. I’m not flying out for the clases on Thur and Fri, or anytime soon for that matter. Just getting home is my mission for the week.
