Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
The Hindenburg disaster, which occurred on May 6, 1937, at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey, marked the end of the golden age of airship travel. This catastrophic event not only claimed 36 lives but also exposed significant design flaws and reliability issues in what was once considered a marvel of engineering.
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In Part 2 of Beyond the Numbers, I explored how human reliability principles can be integrated into traditional reliability artefacts such as Reliability Block Diagrams (RBDs), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA). Those tools help us understand how systems fail and how different failure paths interact.
But reliability engineering does not end with failure analysis.
In practice, the outputs of FMECA flow directly into the Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) process, where failure modes are translated into maintenance strategies such as inspections, condition monitoring, restorations or replacements.
If assumptions about human performance are simplified during reliability analysis, those assumptions do not disappear. They are carried forward, and often amplified, when maintenance requirements are defined.
Maintenance is where reliability modelling becomes an operational commitment.
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In the automotive industry, safety is paramount. Yet, even giants like Ford Motor Company can stumble when it comes to addressing critical safety concerns. The recent saga of Ford’s brake system issues serves as a stark reminder of the importance of corporate responsibility and the potential consequences of overlooking serious defects.
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The tragic crashes of the Boeing 737 Max serve as a stark reminder of the critical role reliability plays in engineering design and practice. These incidents, which occurred in October 2018 and March 2019, resulted in the loss of 346 lives and sent shockwaves through the aviation industry. The crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were not mere accidents but the culmination of a series of engineering oversights, management decisions, and regulatory failures.
At the heart of these tragedies was a complex interplay of advanced technology and human factors. The Boeing 737 Max, designed to be more fuel-efficient than its predecessors, incorporated a new flight control system that would ultimately prove to be its Achilles’ heel. This system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was intended to compensate for the aerodynamic changes resulting from the aircraft’s larger, more fuel-efficient engines. However, the MCAS relied heavily on data from a single sensor, creating a single point of failure that would have catastrophic consequences.
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In the previous chapter, we discussed how to prepare your organization to have the strong foundational principles needed to fully utilize agile hardware product development.
This chapter sets you on the path towards being ready for agile hardware product development.
As we mentioned in the previous two episodes, hardware companies need to establish strong foundational principles before applying the best practices of agile hardware product realization. These best practices will be covered in a later episode, but before getting to them, it is worth considering the following set of warning signs to look out for in your current processes and methodologies. Comprehending these as they relate to your current working practices will help you to focus on those elements which can negatively impact your hardware developments.
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As industries increasingly rely on complex electromechanical systems, the importance of Return Parts Analysis (RPA) cannot be overstated. This crucial process involves forensic examination of failed components to determine root causes and prevent future issues. Let’s explore why RPA is essential, particularly for components like valves, sensors, pumps, and electrical boards.
Return Parts Analysis provides invaluable insights into component failures, offering benefits that extend far beyond simple troubleshooting:
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In the automotive industry, particularly when dealing with electromechanical components, the validation process is a critical phase that ensures the safety, reliability, and performance of products before they reach the market. However, there is a growing trend among companies to avoid failures during this process, often leading to panic when they occur. This article explores why encountering failures during validation should be seen as a blessing rather than a disaster.
[Read more…]In the previous chapter the first part of a practical look at how to apply agile methodologies to your hardware development process was explored.
This chapter completes a look at how to apply agile methodologies to your hardware development process.
As illustrated in the diagram at the beginning of this blog, companies that follow an agile hardware product realization process plan to invest more resources early in the process and, as a result, are able to realize extra profits over the product’s lifecycle. Compare the two lines showing the investment and profit profile of a standard (old ways) development process (from the diagram shown in the previous blog post) with that of those organizations who invest strategically early in the process.
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Historical failure data is a goldmine of information for reliability engineers. It provides a window into the life cycle of products, revealing patterns and trends that can inform future designs and manufacturing processes. By analyzing this data, we can:
1. Identify common failure modes
2. Detect early life failures indicating quality or production issues
3. Determine the onset of wear-out stages
4. Predict time-to-failure for similar products
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The Importance of Reliability in Product Development: A Case Study of an Electromechanical Valve for EV Battery Temperature Control. In the fast-evolving world of electric vehicles (EVs), the precision and reliability of components such as electromechanical valves are critical. These valves, which control the flow of coolant to manage battery temperature, must perform flawlessly under varying conditions. This article delves into the importance of reliability at each stage of product development, from design review to customer release, and highlights when a project might need to halt due to reliability concerns.
[Read more…]In the previous chapter the differences between agile Hardware and Agile Software were explored. This chapter explores the first part of a practical look at how to apply agile methodologies to your hardware development process.
First let’s examine the impact of following the “old ways” that have become normalized as part of the everyday hardware development processes:
Developing any hardware-based product requires careful planning, management, design, and testing before it can be manufactured and shipped to customers. This has resulted in the traditional “waterfall” development model, where work is done in a series of serial activities, with review and approval requirements before moving along the development path.
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When faced with recurring equipment failures, identifying the root cause is only half the battle. The real challenge lies in implementing an effective solution that addresses the issue while considering various stakeholder perspectives. In this article, we’ll explore a comprehensive approach to optimizing decision-making for equipment failure solutions, involving key teams across the organization.
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In Part 1 of Beyond the Numbers, I reflected on why Human Factors matter in reliability engineering and how the human element of the system can be overlooked by traditional hardware-focussed approaches.
This article explores how Human Factors principles can be integrated into traditional reliability analyses such as Reliability Block Diagrams (RBDs), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) and without reinventing the wheel or introducing additional complexity.
The short answer is that we are already doing much of this implicitly. Applying Human Factors principles makes those assumptions explicit and therefore visible, challengeable and open to improvement. [Read more…]
Yes, reliability testing can be done in parallel with design validation (DV). This approach has both advantages and disadvantages, which are important to consider in the context of product development and testing.
We were chatting with some coworkers about stand-up comedians, and someone mentioned that even the most popular comedians try out their new material in small venues before doing a big show for a larger audience. They do this to collect feedback and fine-tune their performance before reaching thousands of people across different cities.
My reliability engineering brain immediately reacted: “This means even stand-up comedians understand the importance of sampling.” They perform a small-scale version of their show to understand how the audience reacts. Based on that feedback, they decide whether the show is ready for a wider audience. In other words, they want to estimate the population’s reaction based on a sample. To me, this is a perfect example of statistical sampling.
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