on Product Reliability

In an ideal world, our products and equipment will just work. They would not fail and would not require warranty claims, product returns, or repair.

Unfortunately, we make design mistakes, assembly errors, incur damage, or simply fail. The desired balance for most businesses is the cost of returns will not outweigh the profit of sales.

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Being the reliability engineer on a project doesn’t have to be a lonely assignment.

Nearly everyone on the team shares the same goal. That of creating a reliable product or maintaining equipment availability.

Other may be electrical or mechanical engineers, technicians, procurement or some other part of the organization, yet they all have something to contribute to improving reliability.

Sometimes you have to find the reliability-minded individuals – to assist when gathering information – to identify potential weaknesses – to provide support for a reliability task – to encourage others to fully consider reliability with each decision [Read more…]

How do you find, encourage and develop reliability professionals across your organization? We all face the challenge of creating a culture of reliability within an organization at some point in our careers.

Do so alone is nearly impossible.

You need support. You need more hands and minds that can spot reliability opportunities. You need to be in dozens of conversations per hour across the organization.

This is difficult for one person to accomplish.

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Over the past week or two (originally published in December 2013), I’ve received requests and comments that have given me pause. Why is it that I have time to answer questions and share information? Why do I spend the time to do so in the first place?

I have found that responding to questions or requests for assistance is rewarding.

Today I received a request for help in a job search. Last week it was an employer looking for a perfect candidate. I’ve received questions about graduate school in the US from a Chinese undergraduate. A question on accelerated life testing approaches. Another on maintenance practices and data analysis.

For each, I try to provide an answer or direct to find an answer.

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When a product or asset works as it’s expected for as long or longer than expected, we often consider it reliable.

Consumers around the world look for reliable products and services. Some will pay a premium with the desire to obtain failure free value from the purchase. When designing a product or service we often want to create the most reliable item within the constraints of time, resources, and cost. Designers and engineers may add margin or safety factors into calculations and decisions to avoid failures.

Many of us have heard that fixing a design is orders of magnitude less expensive early the product lifecycle. Product recalled or major failures can damage profits and brand image.

Here are three ways you can invest in improving product reliability. [Read more…]