Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
The survival of an individual item is difficult to determine. Use and environmental conditions, along with material and assembly differences, count. Let’s explore how to model and use the naturally occurring variability to improve reliability performance. [Read more…]
Years ago I was a part of a reliability engineering community and I had not met more than two or three members. This was before the internet and was using a new-fangled system called an email list.
At the time, it filled the role of helping me understand the many facets of reliability engineering. It helped me answer questions and allowed me to help others as well.
My desire is to help create more such communities that can help you and your organization improve the discussion concerning reliability. Let’s explore exactly how to make this work. [Read more…]
Received a question from a reader this morning that will make a nice tutorial.
A box contains 27 black and 3 red balls. A random sample of 5 balls is drawn without replacement. What is the probability that the sample contains one red ball?
So here’s my thinking and two ways to solve this problem. Instead of red and black balls in an urn type problem, which is pretty abstract, let’s say we know 3 bad parts are in a bin of 30 total parts.
Ran across this question the other day from someone just starting in the role of reliability engineer. I wasn’t smart enough to ask this question when I started in the field, yet looking back I’m sure to have found the list of what one should learn and apply daunting. [Read more…]
Also called the Ishikawa or fishbone diagram, the cause and effect diagram is a graphical tool that enables a team to identify, categorize, and examine possible causes related to an issue. The intent is to expose the most likely root causes for further investigation.
This diagram is part of a complex failure analysis process when there are many potential causes for the problem or condition. Similar to a brainstorm session about the problem, this graphical tool provides a bit of structure and may prompt additional potential causes.
The Ishikawa diagram is one of the seven basic tools of quality control. [Read more…]
Published in Quality Progress in Nov. 2018, pp 34-39. Final 1/27/18 Posted here with permission of Dr. Wayne Nelson and by his suggestion.
Schenectady, NY , WNconsult@aol.com
Sometimes a process doesn’t happen one step at a time. Sometimes, a problem we’re trying to solve has many moving and interacting elements.
Mind Mapping is a technique to capture those scattered thoughts, those non-linear processes, those myriads of interactions and dependencies. It’s a tool that is useful for brainstorming, organizing, and problem-solving. [Read more…]
There are two common uses for a check sheet. First, to summarize historical data, or second, to collect observations. A byproduct of creating a check sheet is team agreement on definitions of categories and observation procedures.
The investment is minimal other than thinking about how you want to view the data, and what data to collect. [Read more…]
The local weather affects your products and systems. Knowing the weather helps you plan your wardrobe for the day. Likewise, knowing the weather helps you design a product or system that can thrive in the weather conditions it will experience. [Read more…]
When you have a scattering of ideas or suggestions, you can use affinity diagrams to organize and group them.
Affinity diagraming is a simple way for an individual or (better) a group to quickly gather and organize a large number of disparate concepts, ideas, suggestions, etc. It is a natural activity after a brainstorming session. [Read more…]
Jezdimir Knezevic of the MIRCE Akademy published a paper with the title above and I have a few comments.
In the article, Jezdimir suggests that the statistical approach to describing the world about us is fundamental flaws and not inherently useful for our use. He compares a mathematical/statistical approach to a scientific approach and finds the stats wanting.
Let’s take a critical look at the topic of this paper and conclusions. [Read more…]
Did you know that best idea to solve a problem is often not the first one?
We all have plenty of bad ideas, hunches, guesses, and flawed ideas. That is ok. We also have great ideas and elegant solutions, too. The trick is exploring all those ideas to find the best ones.
One technique to draw out and capture many ideas is called brainstorming. You most likely have heard of and used this tool already. Let’s review a few key elements that make for excellent brainstorming results. [Read more…]
As a reliability professional, you will be asked to teach. You are part teacher, coach, mentor, and expert. Being effective enhances the understanding of reliability objectives and methods to achieve them. Let’s explore becoming an amazing teacher. [Read more…]
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A good physics of failure (PoF) model helps you understand the impact of stresses on the time-to-failure distribution for a specific failure mechanism. Let’s discuss PoF models, including how to create and use them effectively. [Read more…]