Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Once you decide to monitor a process and after you determine using an $- \bar{X} -$ & R chart is appropriate, you have to construct the charts.
This is not difficult and by following the 8 steps below you will have a robust way to monitor the stability of your process. [Read more…]
When a product or asset works as it’s expected for as long or longer than expected, we often consider it reliable.
Consumers around the world look for reliable products and services. Some will pay a premium with the desire to obtain failure free value from the purchase. When designing a product or service we often want to create the most reliable item within the constraints of time, resources, and cost. Designers and engineers may add margin or safety factors into calculations and decisions to avoid failures.
Many of us have heard that fixing a design is orders of magnitude less expensive early the product lifecycle. Product recalled or major failures can damage profits and brand image.
Here are three ways you can invest in improving product reliability. [Read more…]
The NASA Fault Tree Handbook with Aerospace Applications
This is a break from the usual format of this site. I’m highly recommending that as your review materials and prepare for the CRE exam or prepare to conduct an FTA, you read this NASA document as an intro to fault tree analysis.
For a review, I suggest the first chapter or two. If working in the aerospace industry, you should print and use a copy.
The following is an extended excerpt from the first section of the document. [Read more…]
Some believe leaders are born and become natural leaders. Others believe leadership can be taught and anyone can become a leader. I believe leadership is situational and when intentional can be very powerful.
I learned leadership theory and enjoyed plenty of practice attending the US Military Academy. I certainly practiced leadership during my tour in the Army.
And, I’m not an expert on leadership.
What are Variables Control Charts?
From NIST Engineering Statistics Handbook, section 6.3.2, with edits and additions.
During the 1920’s, Dr. Walter A. Shewhart proposed a general model for control charts as follows: [Read more…]
One of the first things taught in a data analysis class, or in first-grade math, is the plot. A graphical representation of the data. Bar charts, pie charts, histograms, box plots, and the x-y scatter plot. These and others simply help us to understand the nature of the data.
The ‘nature’? The data is only a record of an observation. Counts, colors, numbers, or something similar. The ‘nature’ is, to me, the behavior, maybe pattern, or story the data may reveal.
Consider a handy flow chart and set of descriptions that will assist you in selecting the appropriate control chart, or at least understand the differences. [Read more…]
“Thanks for taking time to do these sessions. Extremely helpful.” – Keron
The forums, chats, tweets (#bluelightofdeath), blogs, and mainstream media (CNN & Vancouver Sun) are looking closely at the launch of Sony’s Playstation. There are reports of dead on arrival and ‘blue light of death’ failures. One business blog discusses the need to understand and match customer expectations as a way to avoid bad press.
I find the expectation is pretty simple.
It should be simple
A brand new device, in this case, an expensive new game console, the entire experience of the purchase, transport, unpacking, hookup and first turn on should be a joy. The anticipation for those picking up the device on the first day comes crashing down to despair when the device fails to work. Products are expected to provide value, and you expect the device in front of you to work as expected. It’s simple.
I once explained to my son that not all units from production will work (he was in junior high school). He said he understood and that it is fine if the game console he buys just works. Ship the ones that don’t work to someone else. [Read more…]
Statistical process control (SPC) is not a control chart alone.
SPC is a set of tools and a thought process to identify, measure, monitor and improve important elements of product development and production. I’ve seen very good and very bad implementations of SPC. [Read more…]
Boeing representatives explained the Dreamliner would need an additional 6 months of work to bring the aircraft’s reliability on par with the existing 777 model.
They made the announcement at the start of the Dubai air show. Not a good start to a week of showing off the features of the aircraft. How does a companay respond to early reliability problems in the news?
Generally, even the most general reliability goal of a new product is to be as good or better than the last model. Sure, the Dreamliner has many new features, materials, and upgrades. Yet, it did as much or more design evaluation and testing as any model previously. [Read more…]
Before Norris-Landzberg’s study there was the work of Coffin and Mason.
One way to approach accelerated life testing is to use a model for the expected dominant failure mechanism. One such model is for solder joint low-cycle fatigue originally published by Coffin (1954) and Manson (1953), independently.
Norris and Landzberg proposed the plastic strain range is proportional to the thermal range of the cyclic loading (ΔT). They also modified the equation to account for effects of thermal cycling frequency (f) and the maximum temperature( T). They and other than empirically fit the parameters for the equation. [Read more…]
Recently I asked for recommendations for books for maintenance reliability engineers. The following list, in no order, are the recommendations. Thanks to all who participated. [Read more…]
A form of testing that reduces the time till results are known, ALT provides a means to estimate the failure rate over time of a product without resorting to normal use conditions and the associated duration.
For example, solar photovoltaic cells should operate for 25 years without failure. The product development time is less than a year for a new panel and the team wants to estimate the reliability of the cells over the 25-year duration. [Read more…]
At the start of class on reliability and maintenance engineering, one of the students asked,
“What is reliability engineering? What do you do?”
This made me think. What is it we do? How to you explain to someone our role?
I like to say, “We break things” with a big wink and a smile. And to some extent, as we explore what fails and how it fails. We most likely have to test our theories and break something. Or, when working with new product designs we employ tools to discover what will break. So, I suppose part of what we do is break things. Yet, that is not a complete answer. [Read more…]