Using Failure Rate Functions to Drive Early Design Decisions

We have good requirements for the reliability of our design. We also have a preliminary design with ideas of how we’re going to manufacture it. Is our design idea good enough? Are there things we should do to improve its performance and reliability?

For a physical product, there are three general stages in its life cycle. In many cases the failure rates of physical products can be represented by a reliability bathtub curve. This curve is really a plot of a hazard rate function, also known as a failure rate function. We talk about data collection in the early design phase, what types of failures are typical for each phase, and design decisions we may make to improve our reliability, based on the failure rate function we plot for our system.

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Types of Design Analyses possible with User Process Flowcharts

Flowcharting isn’t just useful for manufacturing processes. We can use them in lots of ways to help us with design of products and to identify quality characteristics. After all, products are used by people, and the way in which they use them is a process.

• compare ideal vs. actual flowcharts
• identify where there is disagreement about correct sequence or steps
• identify common mistakes/problems at each step to mistake-proof the process and design
• look for holds or delays, find the critical path

We also talk about specific flowchart analyses and how they can be used to analyze the user process for design.

• Cost-of-Poor-Quality
• Critical-to-Quality
• Value-Added Analysis
• Deployment Flowchart

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