Biggest Reliability Mistakes

Abstract

Carl and Fred discussing some of the biggest reliability mistakes they have seen in their careers, and the lessons learned from those mistakes.

Key Points

Join Carl and Fred as they discuss various mistakes that companies make, why they are made, and how they can be avoided.

Topics include:

Mistake 1: a green energy company designed a system involving stored-energy that is released to reduce overall energy usage; mistake was to design the storage vessel without a safety margin; lesson is to always use a safety margin.
Mistake 2: a company added a test every time they ran into a field problem; result was dozens of tests that only addressed known problems; missed potential failures due to new problems; culture did not support prevention; company was too busy to see the process they created.
Mistake 3: company equated reliability only with testing; much of reliability is methods that support prevention in design, called design for reliability.
Mistake 4: misusing statistics, limiting the number of samples due to cost concerns and assuming the results will still be valid; example is a company that assumed exponential distribution and only running tests simulating one year even though the product target life was ten years.
Mistake 5: thinking that a predicted number is real; beware when a reliability prediction gets justified without adequate rational or basis.

Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.