Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
In the past two months, I’ve received a few questions concerning why I recommend avoiding using MTBF or similar metrics. I’m also moving the articles I and others wrote on the topic from NoMTBF.com to Accendo Reliability. So, the topic of MTBF has been on my mind.
This morning’s email included a question on why I was so against using MTBF. This event is my answer. [Read more…]
As all of you are well aware, this show is all about reliability, specifically reliability of circuit assemblies. One challenge that seems to be persistent within our space is design for manufacturability or DFM. If you’re a contract manufacturer, I have no doubt that you’ve had the experience of being asked to build a product that seems unbuildable. One example that rings true in my world was the introduction of bottom terminated components or BTC’s. BTC’s are marvelous components.
Because all the lead terminations are below the part, they allow for highly dense component placement and highly miniaturized assemblies. They also presented a number of unique challenges in reflow, in many cases voiding, cleaning, and inspection. Like many other industries, we are not immune to the introduction of new technologies that may lack implementation knowledge. We then spend the next several years at technical conferences and symposiums learning us how to implement these new technologies. There are many acronyms in our industry that begin with DF…
Design for testability, mechanical assembly, serviceability, reliability, and so many more. So many in fact, that there is a placeholder acronym for all of the various design fours refer to as DFx. Perhaps the holy grail of DFx is DFM, Design for Manufacturability as it encompasses so many aspects of assembly.
To help us understand what exactly is DFM, I invited Andrew Williams to be my guest on this episode. Andrew Williams is the Engineering Manager for Electronics Manufacturing at PRIDE Industries. He has more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing and design and holds an SMT Process Engineer certification from SMTA and an IPC Certified Electronics Program Manager. Andrew is a guest lecturer at UC Davis and Cal State University Sacramento for Supply Chain Management, Operations, and TQM courses, and speaks frequently on DFM, DFS, and other DFX topics and today, he’s my guest on the Reliability Matters Podcast.
Andrew’s Contact Information:
Pride Industries
andrew.williams@prideindustries.com
Chris and Fred discuss the naked mole rat … an animal that doesn’t appear to age at all! Ever! And they are ugly …
Want to know why we are talking about these animals and what that has to do reliability? Listen to this podcast!
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Chris and Fred discuss one of the challenges of allocating reliability … in response to a question from one of our listeners. Might you be able to learn something as well!
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FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is a tool we can use to help us investigate complaints from the field. The FMEA is a matrix of the collective team knowledge about the risks of this product, so it’s a valuable source in our investigation about what’s going on in the field.
We talk through how to go about using FMEA for complaint investigation and what we can do with the information.
Risk is now incorporated into many, if not all, ISO quality and reliability standards. ISO 31000 is the go-to international standard for risk management and risk-based decision-making. ISO 31000 can be used by all types of organizations, regardless of their size, industry, or sector. ISO 31000 provides a standardized and systematic approach to risk management. This helps organizations to identify, assess, and manage risks consistently and effectively. [Read more…]
There are a couple of reasons that an organization will launch quality and continuous improvement initiatives. One of those reasons drives most of the focus.
What looks like one enemy is actually several.
The Quality Warrior doesn’t just fight the enemy but also must build the army.
Carl and Fred sharing suggestions for new reliability engineers on what to do when starting your first job.
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Carl and Fred discussing a question from an Inside FMEA reader on the subject of Process FMEA. It brings up a general topic of root cause, and whether assigning the cause to various forms of operator error is useful.
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We want to ensure our designs perform reliably, as expected and intended. With today’s high-reliability products and quick release to market, we probably don’t have enough time to just test our parts at normal use rates. It would take too long, because our products ARE so reliable. Or, we’ll miss our window of opportunity to get our product to market.
There are several ways to get reliability data to make design decisions. One of the ways is reliability life testing of our product.
This episode explores how accelerated stress testing is one subset of other reliability life testing methods, when it’s a good idea, how we can approach doing it, and what we can do with the results.
First thing … the MTBF is not a reliability metric (other webinars explain why!) But there are many times when (for reasons good and bad) we need to test something to see how often it fails. This can help us determine how many spare parts we need, how many maintainers and technicians we need to employ, and many other really useful (typically logistic) considerations. We sometimes also need to be able to work out if a product meets an MTBF requirement. But when we do … we need to take into all sorts of statistical considerations like producer’s risk, consumer’s risk, and discrimination ratio. Shouldn’t the requirement be the requirement? If you want to learn more about MTBF testing and how it might (or might not) work … then join us for this webinar.
Industry icon Dave Hillman completed a 3,600 mile solo kayak journey down the Missouri River. I spoke with Dave about the inspiration for the journey, insights gained over his four-month expedition, and how his experience as an engineer helped him prepare for this epic experience.
This video features many photographs taken by Dave Hillman on his 3600 mile kayak journey.
Chris and Fred discuss if it is possible to change any organization? Which is a topical issue for reliability engineers who feel that no one takes it seriously.
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