Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Let's have an in-depth discussion during the live webinar series events: Reliability Engineering Basics, Statistics, Accelerated Testing, Program Assessment, and Improvement. Catch up or review past events below.
To attend an upcoming live event, visit the Live Events section of the site, which lists the available upcoming webinars. Recordings are available via recorded videos or audio only via the podcast show.
Find one that looks interesting and register for the event. You will receive login directions and reminders prior to the event. Plus you will be able to join the discussion during the event.
A tool is only as useful as knowing when and how to use it. In this webinar, we will discuss identifying an appropriate DOE project and setting up (define) a DOE. A process for DOE execution will be provided and discussed. We will also provide the thought processes to know when a DOE application is present. [Read more…]
Risk is borne from uncertainty. The reliability performance of your product line and individual products is uncertain. Identifying and understanding the risks involved helps your team mitigate reliability performance risks.
An obvious risk and common question when developing a new product involves the field failure rate. If the failure rate is too high, it may dissuade customers from buying the product. If too low, we assign funds unnecessarily to cover unrealized warranty expenses. [Read more…]
One of the more significant challenges for reliability engineering in product development is the complete execution of the planned reliability process in product development. The reliability tools and techniques outlined in the product plan are often skipped or delayed, minimizing the opportunity for outputs to fully impact the program and product. [Read more…]
A reasonable model helps you make informed decisions. A simple reliability block diagram often provides the insights your team needs to prioritize and achieve the desired reliability performance. Let’s create, populate, and use RBDs effectively.
RBDs comprise a few simple elements and arrangements yet can describe a wide range of products and systems. There are a few assumptions to remember and a few basic ways to create a useful model for your system. [Read more…]
Accelerated Life Testing, ALT, is a technique to estimate an item’s time to failure-pattern. In short, ALT allows us to shorten time. Done well, it provides valuable insights into the future. Done poorly, it is a colossal waste of resources.
In this webinar, let’s talk about the various methods available to you for ALT. Select the right approach, given your understanding of the failure mechanism involved. And discuss the best and a few worst practices when planning and conducting ALT. [Read more…]
HALT promises to find the weaknesses in your design early in the design process. Understanding the basic concepts underlying HALT enables you to do so effectively. Let’s discuss this essential discovery tool and how it fits into your program.
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Writing and executing effective reliability plans is a skill that is not often taught in reliability courses or seminars. It falls under the body of knowledge of reliability management, which is a different set of skills than reliability engineering. What is a Reliability Plan, and how should it be developed? What do well-written reliability tasks look like? How detailed should tasks be described, and how can they be written to support easy execution? How do you ensure that your Reliability Plan is successfully implemented to the desired results?
There are dozens of quality and reliability tools. How does a reliability practitioner know which specific tools to use in a new reliability program. Should reliability allocation be used? Which types of FMEAs are needed? What about robust design or design margin analysis? How does one go about selecting the right reliability tools that will be incorporated into an effective reliability plan?
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) starts with brainstorming and ends with prioritized actions. A great tool to get your team thinking about system failures. Let’s explore the fundamental steps and beset practices to get value from your analysis.
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Every failure has valuable information you and your team require to improve reliability. During the development process, each failure may represent a future recall. Celebrate every failure. Let your FRACAS prioritize which failures to resolve.
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Reliability testing is expensive, time-consuming, and fraught with errors. Is it worth the effort? Is it necessary? Let’s explore relegating testing to only a ‘when necessary’ status. Let’s explore what you and your team can do instead.
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Your team may understand the system reliability goal, yet they should know the goal for the element they are addressing. Let’s discuss why you must do reliability apportionment. Plus, let’s explore how it benefits your team.
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Creating a plan is necessary both for budgeting and buy-in. The added focus on reliability will help your team achieve it’s reliability goals. Plus, a good plan helps build your credibility and program. Let’s explore how to build a reliability plan. [Read more…]
You have carefully crafted a detailed reliability goal including function, environment, probability, and duration, plus apportioned it to critical supplied subsystems and components. Your vendor decides to use MTBF instead.
What can you do? What should you do?
We have data. Often, an abundance of data concerning equipment failures. Failures per month or MTBF-type measures do not reveal sufficient insights to understand the pattern of failures.
