Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A series of articles that describe the stories behind the many elements of the reliability toolkit, plus advice and ideas on how to be an effective reliability engineer.
I found, while working at HP as a reliability engineer, that most managers of new products had little to no understanding of reliability concepts. They usually had the basic concept that reliability engineers should be brought into the project as the design was being finalized but had no clue what they would work on. [Read more…]
My first system project was a new TV design by HP. My first actions were to interview all project engineers and discuss their function in the program. I wanted to know what they were thinking and the approach they would use. From this interview process, I could start defining the Functional Architecture (Ref. REI book p 22-25) and start forming the reliability strategy. [Read more…]
In the early years of inkjet printer development, our standard industry reliability testing plans used at HP were not capable of finding potential problems as the product matured. The following issues were found as printer technology continued to develop. [Read more…]
I was assigned to a new project at HP as a reliability engineer was to develop a rear projection, large screen TV. As the project was being defined, I was informed that an Asian Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) would be developing and manufacturing the HW while HP developed the SW. HP would own the service center support of field issues. My role was to represent the customer and evaluate the reliability of the final product. [Read more…]
While working at HP as a failure analysis engineer, I was asked to join a new R&D project that needed a reliability engineer. My background was in Physics with little experience in reliability other than knowing that failures occur because reliability goals were not met. At HP, reliability engineers were integrated on each HP project by rotating many disciplines of engineering from various parts of the organization. [Read more…]