Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Mike Freier, a PRG Partner, authored a series of blogs about how hardware products transition from an idea, through development, manufacturing and volume sales to their eventual end of life. Join us on this journey and learn how to avoid the pitfalls and risks that companies encounter on their way to a successful product launch.
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Neither includes using MTBF, btw.
And, I’m not thinking about the common language definition either.
Plus, I may have this all wrong. Here is the way I think about the reliability of something. More than ‘it should just work’ and different than ‘one can count on it to start’. When I ask someone how reliable a product is, this is what I mean.
By explaining my basic understanding we can compare notes. It is possible, quite possible, that I will learn something. As you may as well. Let’s see. [Read more…]
Given the reliability goal for a system, we often need to understand the reliaility goals for elements within the system. It is a balance between safety, cost, and performance. This short video discussed how to approach allocating reliability goals within a complex system.
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The PMBOK(Project Management Institute Book of Knowledge) Guide states that project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. Having a good plan, experienced PM, and excellent team is essential to great project management performance. Managing project risks is key to success. Good project management decisions are vital to project success. To achieve this goal, you need good project management leadership.
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Condition Monitoring when used to drive reliability improvement offers diagnostics, information and data for Root Cause Analysis and equipment redesign, along with verification of defect or design correction.
Condition monitoring applied proactively is a context embracing world class reliability maintenance concepts.
Where condition monitoring is used as a proactive defect elimination strategy to drive failure prevention the benefits really add up with improved Reliability giving extended Mean Time Between Failures and additional Plant Availability. There have been recorded instances where the gains in improved plant uptime has lead to deferment of expensive plant expansion.
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Today’s Gremlin – It’ll never work here is the first one we’ll deal with. We’ve all run into him at one point or another. “It’ll never work here” is someone, or many, who has / have been around for a long time. This is one of the many gremlins we talked about when we introduced this series of articles.
[Read more…]Dear Friends, We are happy to share this second video on Response Surface Design. In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe, Fellow of ASQ and Six Sigma Master Black Belt explains the structure of Response Surface Design with focus on Central Composite Design (CCD). Hemant has taken lot of efforts to illustrate this little complex concept with lot of graphics and animations so that viewers can understand it clearly and quickly. Hemant has also illustrated how to create, analyse and interpret results of Central Composite Design on Minitab with a virtual catapult.
We recommend that viewers should watch our previous videos:
(1) RSM Part-1
(2) Fractional Factorial Designs and Resolution Code
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A mission statement is more than just a set of words on a company’s website or a framed plaque on the wall. When crafted thoughtfully and embraced by leadership and employees alike, a mission statement can serve as a powerful tool for driving behavioral change within an organization. It’s the foundation upon which culture is built and provides direction for decision-making, aligning team efforts with the broader vision. But perhaps most importantly, a mission statement can be a catalyst for shifting behaviors and guiding individuals and teams toward shared goals.
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Do you have to apply Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) to every asset? Of course not! In this short video, I explain how RCM can be applied as broadly or as narrowly as you need, depending on your organization’s specific needs. Don’t worry about doing RCM for everything—just focus where it matters most!
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In the world of quality, reliability, product design, and manufacturing, improvement is a necessity, not a luxury. Few models have provided a stronger foundation for improvement than the Deming Cycle, commonly referred to as PDCA: Plan-Do-Check-Act.
Although simple in structure, PDCA represents a deep and disciplined approach to learning, problem-solving, and continuous improvement. Whether you are optimizing a production process, refining a laboratory method, or developing a new product, understanding PDCA is essential.
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At Pardus Consulting, we’ve just launched an online Jack-Knife Diagram (JKD) calculator that transforms downtime data into a clear, actionable visual.
By entering failure codes, counts of interventions and MTTR values, you’ll see at a glance which issues are both frequent and severe—no manual plotting or spreadsheet gymnastics required.
We’ve previously talked about this method as a much needed upgrade from Pareto Charts when prioritising downtime events and focus areas in our article HERE. [Read more…]
The concept of Reliability is often misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted. Reliability in its academic root, is defined as the probability that a system will perform its intended function in a specified mission time and within specific process conditions. So, it is in essence a probability.
The ageing variable is crucial in calculating the reliability of a system. Reliability is the Probability of Success. And 1 minus the Probability of Failure. In the equation below , the ageing variable is time (t).
$$ \displaystyle \large R\left(t\right) = 1 – F\left(t\right) \:\:\:\: (where \: F = Failure \: Probability) $$
Reliability engineering is based on building data models to predict future system performance accurately. Based on past performance records. The model is more or less precise depending on how many past records we have. The more data, the more precise the model. At the end of the day, a well defined model, even with a little data, is better than no model. At least we can proceed in the right direction. That is, make the best possible decision for our assets.
This article looks at a non exhaustive list of models in the Reliability Engineering realm.
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Have you ever wondered by we use the assumption of a constant failure rate? Or considered why we assume our system is ‘in the flat part of the curve [bathtub curve]’?
Where did this silliness first arise?
In part, I lay blame on Mil Hdbk 217 and parts count prediction practices. Yet, there is a theoretical support for the notion that for large, complex systems the overall system time to failure will approach an exponential distribution.
Thanks go to Wally Tubell Jr., a professor of systems engineering and test. He recently sent me his analysis of Drenick’s theorem and it’s connection to the notion of a flat section of a bathtub curve.
Wally did a little research and found the theorem lacking for practical use. I agree and will explain below. [Read more…]
Software reliability and hardware reliability are two distinct concepts within the field of engineering, each with its own unique characteristics and measurement challenges.
Software reliability is defined as the probability that software will operate without failure for a specified period of time in a specified environment. It is a reflection of the design perfection rather than manufacturing perfection, which is more associated with hardware reliability. The complexity of software is a major contributing factor to software reliability issues. Unlike hardware, software does not degrade over time or wear out, but it may have faults due to design defects that can cause failures.
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The aim of being in business is to satisfy customers in ethical ways while making a profit. To achieve this, variable and fixed costs should be as low as possible without sacrificing on quality products or customer experience.
The term Operational Excellence is often used to refer to a range of technical, soft-skills, and culture components. Regardless of how it is phrased, the core definition and goal are the same – to produce better operational results, and create value for customers and shareholders. In short, Operational Excellence performance is to produce the best quality products or services customers will buy for the lowest expenditure to maximize operating profit. The most successful businesses have built systems and processes that automatically keep their costs low and profits high
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