Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Chris and Fred discuss the similarities between reliability engineering and good marketing is. Why? … we have to try and convince lots of skeptics.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discussing the proper use of the equation often used to determine acceleration factors for accelerated temperature and humidity testing.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discussing a listener’s questions on how to convert a failure rate to a distribution.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discuss the many and varied different software package that can help you do ‘reliability stuff’ … and how we usually assume everything they do is ‘OK.’ But how do we know the software is giving us the numbers we need?
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discuss an ALT or Accelerate Life Test Design Question. We love these podcasts … as we are directly answering a question from one of our listeners. Interested in hearing a response to a real-world question from a listener?
ᐅ Play Episode
What is supportability? Is it working out how many spare parts you will need (and when)? No. Is it working out how many maintainers or technicians you will need to keep your system working? Still no. What about working out what tools these maintainers or technicians need? No again. But many people think that this is what ‘supportability’ is. ‘Supportability’ is actually a characteristic of your product or system. Is the ‘ability’ for it to be ‘supported.’ And this can mean different things in different scenarios. It is also not a ‘number.’ If you have two comparable systems, but one needs fewer spare parts, is easier to maintain, needs fewer tools, has lots of sensors that give plenty of warning for maintenance, and so on … than it might be more supportable. But the main thing you need to ‘think about’ regarding supportability is that because it is a characteristic of a product or system … it has to be baked INTO the design. Want to learn more about how to do this? Join us for this webinar.
[Read more…]
Chris and Fred discuss the importance of understanding value when you make decisions. And value needs to mean something to you and your organization. Not something in a dictionary.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discuss how many samples you need to conduct Accelerated Life Testing or ALT … and a little bit about what ALT is.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Dianna discuss the ‘sedentary inertia’ that many companies experience when they need to change … but can’t (don’t want to). Especially in the world of quality!
ᐅ Play Episode
Everyone has heard of the ‘bell curve.’ Sports show hosts, teachers, scientists and a bunch of other people routinely use the term ‘bell curve’ to describe uncertainty. But do you know where it comes from? It is not just a ‘pretty shape’ that seems to work, It comes from a really cool physical phenomena that we find everywhere. So the ‘bell curve’ naturally aligns with how our primitive human brain often tries to characterize or visualize uncertainty. The other really cool thing about the bell curve (and lots of other curves that look like bells) is that if we find it in our reliability data, it automatically tells us where to look in order to improve reliability. If you want a basic introduction to one of the most common statistical concepts with NO EQUATIONS … this is the webinar for you!
[Read more…]
Chris and Fred discuss what you can do to feel good about your job … including when you know it is time to move on.
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discuss how it felt like the 2023 Reliability, Availability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) went? Was it a success? Is it going downhill?
ᐅ Play Episode
Chris and Fred discuss the age-old problem or regulation. If the regulators are not the adults in the room, then we have a problem.
ᐅ Play Episode
Some of you have heard of HALT (and I don’t mean someone asking you to stop). HALT is a very powerful form of testing to really help us improve the robustness and reliability of new products. So what is HALT? HALT is a targeted test strategy to stress your amazing new product to (and beyond) it’s limits. Which means HALT will break your product (or prototype). Over and over again. Some people ask ‘so what … of course it was going to break when you pushed it that hard?’ But there is a method to this madness. And many organizations have used HALT to create amazing new products that are robust and reliable very quickly (with competitors struggling to understand why). Want to learn more? See you at this webinar!
[Read more…]
Chris and Fred discuss what is the first thing with you do when someone gives you lots of information. What do you do?
ᐅ Play Episode