Reliability engineers all have a start.
A point zero.
The transition point from pursuing something else, or nothing at all, then we begin our journey as a reliability engineering professional.
Getting started can be difficult and at times overwhelming.
Then you find Accendo Reliability and there is a lot of great content, maybe too much. So, this short article has the intent to create a starting point for you.
Plus, for those well along in their career, a request.
What is your advice to those just starting their career? My plan is to gather the advice from this community and assembly a start here guide just for those just starting their career.
Leave a comment below with your words of wisdom.
Selecting the role or being selected
It’s still a beginning. In fact, you may experience many starts even as a reliability engineer. You may find you enjoy the:
- start of your formal education
- first day of your assignment
- start of a new project
- start of building a new team
You will regularly explore new materials, new systems, and new approaches to solve problems.
You may choose to attend a university for a degree in reliability engineering before starting your work career.
You may find you have an interest in reliability engineering and secure a position as your organization’s reliability engineer. You might have started when you received the assignment to the position.
However you get started, you start and it’s often with little knowledge of the many facets and tools involved.
Getting Started as a New Reliability Engineer article explores the first set of tasks you should consider. The article explores three essential steps to getting a good start in your career.
That article created quite a bit of interest and feedback, so the follow up is a webinar with the title of Getting Started with Reliability Engineering. It’s about an hour and includes a few comments and questions from the audience throughout the event.
The webinar is part of the Accendo Reliability Webinar series and is free to attend.
As an Accendo Reliability member, you have access to the full recordings of all the events.
Learning reliability engineering to enhance your career
Professional development is essential.
One aspect of reliability engineering work is there is so much to learn.
Finding a steady stream of engaging, thought-provoking material will help you master the many facets of reliability engineering.
The Accendo Reliability Webinar series is a great start, yet there are other webinar programs out there that may provide just the right material to help you solve a problem or advance your career.
Check out the Reliability Webinar Calendar and join the Upcoming Reliability Webinars email list. The once a month email lists all the reliability engineering related webinar events we can find.
No more need to subscribe to multiple lists and sites to plan which webinars to attend. Get the full listing from 25+ sources all in one email.
Webinars are not the only way to learn about reliability engineering.
There are at least 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge in the course by the same name. The course is free with Accendo Reliability membership and provides a weekly email and lesson to help you explore the many ways you learn.
Plus, each lesson includes links and examples to help you move forward with your education.
A good summary of what to focus on as you start your career is in the article, Getting Started Learning Reliability Engineering.
You will find links and suggestions to begin your learning journey.
A few final suggestions
If you are in the asset management/maintenance side of reliability engineering, take a look at the article, If You Want a Proactive Maintenance Program Tat Really Works, Then Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Is The Way.
If you’d prefer to listen to a bit of advice, then check out the podcast episode How to Get Started as a Reliability Engineer. It’s part of the show Speaking of Reliability.
The final suggestion is to let us at Accendo Reliability know what you are looking for as you get started.
What problems are you trying to solve? What challenges are you facing?
We can either point to the article, podcast, or webinar that may help, or we can work to create just the right content to help you move forward. Leave a comment below with any questions or ideas.
Likewise, if you are already an established reliability engineer, what is your advice to those getting started?
Please leave a comment below.
Reliability engineering is a very important discipline as without it the product life cycle would not work out.
This is a really good post. Reliability engineering isn’t just an interesting job but it also offers a lot of great knowledge if you’re willing to continuously keep on learning.
Well said Larry – and I suspect that to keep learning applies to most anything we do.
Good day Mr Fred,
I am planning to start my Masters in Reliability Engineering and Asset management in petroleum industry, having difficulty in picking a project Topic, ideas on topics i can pick from would be highly appreciated as I want to build a career in Reliability engineering
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for the note and interest in reliability engineering. It is a rewarding career.
For topics, it is always good to ask around the industry, your faculty, and by monitoring online forums, technical papers, etc. There are many potential topics, here are few off the top of my head:
Overcoming obstacles to getting time to failure data on systems and components for proper analysis (i.e. not MTBF)
The Business harm of using inadequate data analysis
Improvements and application of condition monitoring and a strategy to deploy effectively
Design, monitoring, and maintenance strategy and benefits (maybe for specific equipment or set of failure mechanisms)
Unique failure mechanism of spare part storage and prevention techniques
and, I’m sure you will come up with many other ideas.
Cheers,
Fred