Introducing Accendo Reliability 2020
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss the new challenges of reliability in the upcoming years. Accendo was originally setup to help reliability professionals in an objective and broad forum. And this appeared to fill a void. Trade magazines are over-bearing, with sponsor adds replacing well thought-out articles. Professional societies are becoming less and less relevant (but more expensive). And Accendo lists ‘competitor’ programs, blogs and articles where other organizations strictly focus on their products, courses, books and so on. So Accendo has become the only ‘one stop shop’ for the reliability engineering community who want to develop their skills.
But now what? We have noticed that there is perhaps a growing problem with the reliability ‘industry.’ Academia is heading in their own direction. Practitioners are becoming increasingly ‘practiced’ in their own (sometimes narrow) field. Reliability software is necessarily general. And this often doesn’t help the new technologies that are emerging – particularly those systems with their own ‘brains’ that can make decisions about how they operate. Systems that need a ‘first principles’ approach and not a formulaic rehash of what worked well 30 years ago.
So … we are looking for your ideas! What is it that you would like Accendo to be in 2020? What is missing in your area of expertise? What product is not available that you would dearly like to use? Please let us know, as we are now focusing on what Accendo 2020 should be … and it might be considerably different (and better) to what it is now.
Key Points
Join Chris and Fred as they discuss what we call ‘Accendo 2020.’ That is, what should we do to make Accendo better for the emerging suite of reliability challenges. Accendo is currently the ‘one stop shop’ for reliability engineering professional development. And because of this broad, objective remit, Accendo has grown. So it is filling a need that no other site is filling.
So we have reached a point where we need to think about the future. What should Accendo Reliability look like from 2020 onwards? There are many challenges to the reliability industry. We are increasingly hearing things like …
- Academia is solving increasingly sophisticated be decreasingly relevant problems. A student needs to develop something ‘new’ to get their PhD. But this quest means an inevitable move away from what society needs to what universities want.
- Conferences are not tackling major problems. A member of the RAMS 2019 board stated to Department of Defense audience that the primary role of the conference was to allow students to present research. No! It is to solve problems attendees (customers) have.
- Too many practitioners are trying to push their ‘practice’ more than a first principles approach. FMEAs, RCMs, HALT, Weibull plotting and so on are all really great. But none of them solve everything.
- Standards are outdated and non-scientific. In fact, most of the standards we use today are based on assumptions needed to be able to solve reliability problems ‘by hand.’ But given we all have powerful computers, why don’t we use them?
- So much (sensor) data, no information. We are in some cases swimming in data gathered by sensors or measured by technicians. But this data is a waste of time if it doesn’t inform a decision. And it can’t inform a decision if it takes too long to analyze, or isn’t presented in a useful way.
So what should Accendo do differently? Should we do any of the following … and if so, under what framework?
- Accendo standards
- Accendo training
- Accendo conferences
- Accendo simple to use web-based reliability data analysis tools
- Accendo ‘short TED talk’ videos that quickly explain basic concepts and activities
- Accendo ???
Please help us! Accendo 2020 is an initiative to help us better meet your needs. So if you have a need … let us know!
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.
Show Notes
Hi Chris and Fred,
Thank you for giving us a glimpse into what the future may hold in store for the Accendo project. When I first transitioned into the reliability engineering field almost 10 years ago, opportunities to learn about reliability were hard to come by especially working for a company that did not like to spend money on things like training or conferences. Fred’s ASQ RD webinars and later the Accendo site were great resources that helped me grow and progress to where I am today. I would like to see Accendo continue to offer free resources like podcasts and webinars as part of a basic membership and maybe you could offer some of the advanced services as part of a premium membership (e.g. video colloquiums) and pay-to-play (1-on-1 reliability data analysis and tutoring).
Cheers,
Chris
Thanks Chris and thanks for a couple of great ideas.cheers, Fred