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Fred Schenkelberg — Thought Leader

Author of <a href="/creprep/">CRE Preparation Notes</a>, <a href="/on-product-reliability/musings">Musings</a>, <a href="/articles/nomtbf/">NoMTBF</a>, <a href="/book-author/fred-schenkelberg/">multiple books & ebooks</a>, co-host on <a href="/series/sor/">Speaking of Reliability</a>, and speaker in the <a href="/series/sor/">Accendo Reliability Webinar Series</a>.


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

by Fred Schenkelberg 5 Comments

10 Steps of FMEA

10 Steps of FMEA

In Chapter 8 of The Basics of FMEA by Robin E. McDermott, et. al. discusses the ten steps for an FMEA. I find it to be an excellent summary for describing and conducting a failure mode and effect analysis.

Therefore based on the work of McDermott and others, plus my own experience here are the ten steps with my descriptions. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Preparation Notes, Reliability in Design and Development Tagged With: FMEA and FMECA

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Basics of Reliability Engineering

Basics of Reliability Engineering

One of best features about working in reliability engineering is everything fails, eventually. This fact provides a bit of career stability.

Another aspect I enjoy is the concepts and approaches that create the foundation for reliability engineering knowledge do not change very much over time. The basics of reliability engineering are the same as when the earliest engineers began design structures and products.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: professional development

by Fred Schenkelberg 3 Comments

How to Read a Standard Normal Table

How to Read a Standard Normal Table

One of the most basic skills needed for the CRE exam is the ability to correctly read the Standard Normal Table.

Writing this short how-to article would be really easy if there were only one way to create the table. There isn’t. It seems every author has to create a unique way to tabulate the values. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Preparation Notes, Probability and Statistics for Reliability Tagged With: Discrete and continuous probability distributions

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

3 Ideas to Overcome Organizational Inertia

3 Ideas to Overcome Organizational Inertia

It seems the forces of nature are working against our ideas.

I recall being frustrated as a child playing in the sandbox. I wanted to create a ramp of sand to race my cars down. No matter how much I pushed and patted the dry sand succumbed to some unseen force and did not hold the desired shape.

In business, we sometimes experience the same frustration. It’s not gravity.

Instead, we are facing organizational inertia.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: process

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Role of Reliability in an Organization

Role of Reliability in an Organization

An effective product reliability process requires a strong team, at every level.

The team of employees within an organization that participate and impact product reliability is a vast and widespread group of people. They include members of the design team, design managers, quality and reliability engineers and managers, procurement engineers and managers, warranty managers, failure analysis specialists, members of the marketing and sales staff, members of the finance and manufacturing teams, and field service and call center staffs. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Preparation Notes, Reliability Foundations, Reliability Management Tagged With: Function of reliability engineering, Role of reliability function in the organization

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

11 Ways to Find Reliability Value

11 Ways to Find Reliability Value

Most agree that improving products or process reliability is a good thing. It’s good for customers, factories, and our business.

And, sometimes it’s difficult to answer the question,

What is the value of that reliability activity?

Years ago my boss asked me what value I provided the organization. Working as a reliability professional, I thought that my value was obvious. He asked me to show the value.

It was harder than I thought.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: value

by Fred Schenkelberg 5 Comments

Calculate Weibull Mean and Variance

Calculate Weibull Mean and Variance

For our use of the Weibull distribution, we typically use the shape and scale parameters, β and η, respectively. For a three parameter Weibull, we add the location parameter, δ. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Preparation Notes, Probability and Statistics for Reliability Tagged With: Discrete and continuous probability distributions

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Finding Value in FMEA

Finding Value in FMEA

Failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA) is a tool that works to prevent process and product problems before they occur.

I like to define FMEA’s as an organized brainstorm. The process examines a product or process and asks what could go wrong. Then the team systematically determines and rank orders for each failure mode:
– the severity of the problem when it occurs
– the probability of the problem occurring
– the ability to detect the problem before it occurs

Good design engineers think about how the design could fail and improve the design. FMEA provides a structured team approach to further improve the design.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: Benefits of reliability engineering, FMEA

by Fred Schenkelberg 5 Comments

Top 10 CRE Exam Preparation Tips

My best CRE exam preparation tips

Over the past few years, we have been helping people from around the world prepare for and pass the ASQ CRE exam. Over this time, and from personal experience, I’ve learned a few things about what makes a difference.

Here are ten tips to help you prepare. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Prep, CRE Preparation Notes Tagged With: Exam Preparation

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Consider Reliability Prediction Value

Consider Reliability Prediction Value

One of the primary questions we answer as reliability engineers is:

How long will it last?

Reliability prediction is the forecast or prognostication attempting to quantify either the time till failure, or expected future failure rate or warranty claims, or required spare parts.

We need to know as we make decisions today about the design or purchase.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: prediction

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Recipe for CRE Exam Preparation

In a recent discussion in the Linkedin group ASQ Reliability Division, John Pagendarm replied with his recipe for CRE exam preparation. With John’s permission, I’m posting here.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Prep, CRE Preparation Notes Tagged With: cre prep

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

When Are We Out of Control

When Are We Out of Control

For a stable process, nothing much happens. If the stable process is producing acceptable products, we should expect to continue to produce acceptable products.

Unless something changes. [Read more…]

Filed Under: CRE Preparation Notes, Probability and Statistics for Reliability Tagged With: Statistical Process control (SPC) and process capability

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

2013 in Review

Thanks to you all for a great year. The idea of the blog is to assist those preparing for the CRE exam or wanting to learn about reliability engineering. It seems to have found the audience.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.


Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Prep, CRE Preparation Notes

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

8 Steps to Creating an X-bar and s Control Chart

8 Steps to Creating an X-bar and s Control Chart

Once you decide to monitor a process and after you determine using an $- \bar{X} -$ & s chart is appropriate, you have to construct the charts.

The $- \bar{X} -$ & R charts use the range as an approximation of the variation in the population. When feasible use the standard deviation, s, rather than the range, R for the improved efficiency in detecting meaningful changes in process variation. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, CRE Preparation Notes, Probability and Statistics for Reliability Tagged With: Statistical Process control (SPC) and process capability, X-bar

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

5 Ways to Be in Service of Others

5 Ways to Be in Service of Others

Over the past week or two, I’ve received requests and comments that have given me pause. Why is it that I have time to answer questions and share information? Why do I spend the time to do so in the first place?

I have found that responding to questions or requests for assistance is rewarding.

Today I received a request for help in a job search. Last week it was an employer looking for a perfect candidate. I’ve received questions about graduate school in the US from a Chinese undergraduate. A question on accelerated life testing approaches. Another on maintenance practices and data analysis.

For each, I try to provide an answer or direct to find an answer.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability Tagged With: coaching

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