Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Short essays and thoughts (musings) on reliability and maintenance engineering topics.
Let me know your reaction and thought, plus any questions.
ISSN 2329-0080
During a normal day, we unconsciously tie our shoes, brush our teeth and drive to work, mostly by routine and without too much conscious thinking about the tasks. Occasionally we answer the phone and have to think a little about the conversation. Or we design an experiment for the next project, thinking we can save time by using the same test as last time. Then we slip comfortably into a routine. Do we not think anymore?
Reliability engineering is thinking.
… Or, reliable learning. One of the best things about reliability engineering is the never ending opportunity to learn. We work with materials, assembly processes, and people creating and maintaining products, machines, and systems. Other engineering disciplines tend to focus on one aspect of a design or process – mechanical engineers make allowances for the circuit board location and heat transfer requirements, yet do not word on the circuits themselves. Electrical engineers just the opposite, they focus on electronics and power and attempt to fit within the constants imposed by industrial designers. Maybe architects are close to the breadth of reliability engineering as they contribute the aesthetic and functional elements of a design, and consider the maintenance and longevity of the building. Yet, they are not involved with the actual aging and maintenance. [Read more…]
Having been invited to evaluate reliability practices within a company, I conducted a series of interviews with various staff members. When asked any question on the reliability techniques used, members of the engineering, procurement, operations, and quality departments all responded with nearly the same comment: “Oh, the reliability guy does that.” It appeared that the organization had one reliability engineer who did everything related to reliability. His interview was scheduled last that day. I was looking forward to meeting him. [Read more…]
Imagine you are requested to assist a design team in determining how to best improve the reliability of a product. You learn that the organization produces a range of point of sale (POS) devices and they have invited you to a meeting with their staff to discuss the product and ways to improve the field reliability.
To help understand the situation, you may have already started to think of a set of questions whose answers would lead to suitable recommendations: [Read more…]
A life-support-equipment company manager desires to conduct a reliability program assessment. The company is experiencing about a 50% per year failure rate and at least the Director of Quality thought it should do better. One of the findings was related to reliability goal setting and how it was used within the organization.
Nearly everyone knew that the product had a 5,000-h Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) reliability goal, but [Read more…]
The concept of a maturity model is not new. It provides a means to identify the current state and illuminate the possible improvements to a reliability program. The matrix serves a guide to assist an organization in improving its program.
The matrix has five stages. In general, the higher stages are most cost effective and efficient at achieving higher rates of product reliability performance. These stages—uncertainty, awaking, enlightenment, wisdom, and certainty—are described in today’s post. [Read more…]
An essential element of a successful reliability program is the notion that all reliability activity relates to decisions. If you are performing a HALT because it is listed in the product development guidelines, or because it was carried over from the last program’s plan, and the HALT results are not part of the design improvement decision-making process, then you probably should not be doing so. If the HALT results yield little or no information (e.g., it is just being checked off the list as accomplished) then the HALT itself provides little or no value. [Read more…]
This will be the last of the series, considering the different positions in an organization that deals with product reliability. We’ve moved away from the positions where the focus on reliability is central, but there are important considerations in relation to product reliability for each of these roles still. In this concluding post the subjects are the manufacturing team, and field service and call center staffs. [Read more…]
In this installment of the series dealing with the myriad participants within an organization, we’ll start with failure analysis specialists, before moving to marketing and sales, and finally getting to the finance team. We’re moving away from the positions where the focus on reliability is central, but there are important considerations in relation to product reliability for each of these roles still. The next post in this series will be the final one. [Read more…]
Continuing the series where we examine various roles within an organization and the ways in which each role interacts and affects product reliability, this post will start off with procurement engineers and managers. Since each role hereafter is a bit less involved, multiple roles will be grouped together. After procurement, we’ll take a look at warranty managers. [Read more…]
The last post moved into the role of quality and reliability engineers, and the influence that leadership in design and product development has on the product reliability process. Similarly, this post will move to Q & R managers, again looking at the role of that position in relation to product reliability.
The last post in this series dealt with management in design and the influence that leadership in design and product development has on the product reliability process. This post will turn to quality and reliability (Q & R) engineers, again looking at the role of that position in relation to product reliability. The next post in this series will take a look at the role of quality and reliability managers. [Read more…]
The last post in this series dealt with the design team, and the influence that team has on the product reliability process. This post will turn to product development and design managers, again looking at the role of that position in relation to product reliability. The series of posts on reliability participants will continue after today’s post with the roles of quality and reliability engineers and managers.
An effective product reliability process requires a strong team, at every level. The team of employees within an organization that participate and impact product reliability is a vast and widespread group of people. They include members of the design team, design managers, quality and reliability engineers and managers, procurement engineers and managers, warranty managers, failure analysis specialists, members of the marketing and sales staff, members of the finance and manufacturing teams, and field service and call center staffs. [Read more…]
Last week I discussed how the aspects of the structure of an organization relate to product reliability. Related to that, this week the discussion will remain on the level of a reliability organization but will look at something a bit more intangible – how decision-making policy and practice affects product reliability. [Read more…]
