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Fred Schenkelberg — Thought Leader

Author of CRE Preparation Notes, Musings", NoMTBF, multiple books & ebooks>, co-host on Speaking of Reliability>/a>, and speaker in the Accendo Reliability Webinar Series.


This author's archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.

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Comparing Human and Machine Capability

Comparing Human and Machine Capability

In 1968 NASA explored where machines and humans would best achieve tasks primarily during space missions. Many of the findings are true today, and in some areas, the differences are blurring.

Machines created by humans continue to improve and take on complex tasks, that once only humans could do. For example, parking a car, now a feature of newer car models. Autonomous driving is happening and continuing to improve. The ability to reason, to foresee and evaluate risks, once thought to be strictly in the domain of human capability is now being done by machines. [Read more…]

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Two Birds with One Stone

Two Birds with One Stone

Just back from a trip to Patagonia and catching up with emails and writing this morning. Posting an article for this list is due today along with a touch of travel weariness, decided to share a part of a question received concerning data analysis.

My thought is to post an actual question one of our peers is facing, and meet the deadline for this post. [Read more…]

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Life Cycle Costs

Life Cycle Costs

How building reliability into the equipment design will dramatically improve your profitability.

Part 4 of 5

Does your team procure, setup and put into operation equipment with a single focus on reducing the initial capital expenditure?

Do you work with your equipment suppliers to fully specify the equipment’s functions, performance, and reliability? Maybe not the reliability? [Read more…]

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Human Factor Considerations

Human Factor Considerations

If a human is going to build, install, monitor, use, operate, repair, or dismantle, then the design team must consider human factors.

According to Wikipedia

Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.

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Using a Design FMEA

Using a Design FMEA

How building reliability into the equipment design will dramatically improve your profitability.

Part 2 of 5

Products and equipment start with a design. The functions and performance occur or do not occur according to the capabilities designed into the system.

I learned early in my career, as a manufacturing engineer, that some products were much easier to manufacture (less yield loss) than others, and it was often the design of the product that made the difference. [Read more…]

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The Downside of a Fault Tolerant System

The Downside of a Fault Tolerant System

Maintaining high reliability or availability is a marked advantage for any system. A system that achieves the ability to avoid system downtime due to a single failure event, is essential in many applications. Yet, the fault tolerant capability comes at a price.

A system that achieves the ability to avoid system downtime due to a single failure event, is essential in many applications. Yet, the fault tolerant capability comes at a price.

Here is a short list and brief description of fault tolerant design disadvantages:

Masking or obscuring low-level failures

The nature of a fault tolerance design is to continue to operate normally even with a component failure.

Thus if the ability to detect a component failure relies on a loss of function or capability, it may be difficult to detect the failure. This sets the stage for a second component failure to cause a system downing event. [Read more…]

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Nevada Charts to Gather Data

Nevada Charts to Gather Data

A common and poor technique to gather field data is to count the number of returns by week or month. This can provide a graph showing the number of returns over time.

It hides information you need to understand your field failures.

Let’s take a look at a way to gather the same field failure data and retain the critical information necessary for time to failure analysis. [Read more…]

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Does a Certification Make You a Professional Reliability Engineer?

Does a Certification Make You a Professional Reliability Engineer?

Does a Certification Make You a Professional Reliability Engineer?

Obtaining certifications based on your reliability engineering knowledge does not make you a professional. It is how you apply your knowledge that does. Let’s explore what it means to be a professional reliability engineer.

It is how you apply your knowledge that does. Let’s explore what it means to be a professional reliability engineer.

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Two Proportions Hypothesis Testing

Two Proportions Hypothesis Testing

In the article, Hypothesis Tests for Proportion, the comparison is between a given value and the sample. In this case, let’s compare two populations. We take a sample which provides a proportion representing each population and determines if the populations are different from each other based on the two samples.

The exact solution uses the Binomial distribution, yet when np and 1 – np are greater than 5, then we can use a normal approximation for the test statistic and critical value. [Read more…]

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Are You Tracking and Reporting Field Failures Well?

Are You Tracking and Reporting Field Failures Well?

Fielded products fail day by day. Customers report these failures generally seeking a way to remedy this issue. Gathering the reported or returned products or confirmed failures is common practice.

Depending on the product a simple replacement or exchange may suffice. For other products, repair or a refund may be appropriate.

In general, and not always, when a product fails in the hands of a customer, the organization designing, manufacturing and distributing the product learns of the failure. [Read more…]