Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
“The language we use matters.” Wayne Nelson
How we talk about reliability does matter. It sets expectations and influences decisions. We talk about reliability as it is important to our customers and our business. The successful operation of the equipment in a plant permits the production of products. The successful operation of the product satisfies the needs and expectations of our customers.
Years ago a client asked for help in reducing the amount of reliability testing they did for each project. They had a sense that some of the testing wasn’t useful. What they want to know was how to select the appropriate testing and be sure they wouldn’t miss anything important.
There are two basic approaches when addressing product reliability: Reactive or Proactive. Neither is right or wrong.
The reactive approach has the limitation of responding to failures that occur during prototyping, production and customer use.
The proactive approach focuses on preventing product design, assembly, and use issues before they have the opportunity to create a product failure.
A common expectation consumers have concerning products is that the product works. The product provides value by performing one or more functions. Also, implicit with this expectation is the product will function over some duration. A reliable product meets or exceeds this common expectation.
Every product has a finite duration of successful operation before failure occurs.
In Katmandu, I visited a small pottery factory. There was a young man sitting at a potting wheel making candle stands. He didn’t measure anything and I doubt anyone did.
Based on experience and just looking at a finished item, he could tell if it was acceptable or not. That was good enough.
Reliability coaching is one-to-one or small team discussions lead by an experienced reliability engineer (me) focused on achieving an agreed upon goal for the coaching program.
When I first started working in a factory as a shift supervisor, it seemed there was some type of formal training nearly every month. And we were expected to attend a conference once a year. Little did I know that was a great time to start working in industry. We enjoyed a lot of great training.
Later in my career and as the economy changed budgets for training slowly declined. Travel budgets also slipped away. I don’t have hard numbers, yet I suspect there is less company-sponsored professional development than 20 years ago.
As an engineering working in the reliability field, how do you keep up and learn what you need to know to accomplish your work? [Read more…]
It always seems there are more red lights when I’m running late.
This comment and others similar to it caught my attention lately. Is it just Murphy’s Law or something else?
There is an element of luck or chance in many events during our daily lives. The same is true when producing products and the resulting reliability. A lot has to go right for the product to work for the customer.
When something isn’t going as expected, we have a comparison that gains attention. If the lights are red more often, in theory, when I’m running late, maybe the lights are not turning red more often, it’s just that we notice.
For product development, it’s noticing the items that are going well and failing that matter. As reliability professionals, we need to continue to practice being aware of what is expected and what actually happens. [Read more…]
Reliability engineers learn basic tools and techniques most often from others with that knowledge. During our careers, we also continue to learn and often find ourselves teaching. Even when mentoring we find ourselves learning. Being a deliberate and active student and teacher is a great way to remain inquisitive and helpful.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. [1]
Learning never stops. [Read more…]
Value is:
the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth,
or usefulness of something. [1]
As a reliability engineer, we work across the organization to bring a reliable product to market. The value of meeting the customer’s reliability expectations results in customer satisfactions, increased sales, and in some cases premium pricing.
We want a reliable product.
Many elements help make a reliability engineer successful.Two such elements are knowing the right people to get the job done and generally being a positive and enjoyable person to be around.
My dictionary says that talented is “having a natural aptitude or skill for something.”
We learn reliability engineering and those who understand the range of tools and techniques useful for a given situation would be considered talented.
Everything is not solved by running a highly accelerated life test (HALT) or only conducting detailed failure analysis. Knowing when and why to apply a particular tool and using the tool effectively (i.e., when to use a Weibull distribution to model lifetime data and how to use the information to make decisions) are critical. [Read more…]
Whether by design or by accident some of us become reliability engineers. Making a career in reliability engineering relies on your ability to make a difference and to add value. Being successful as a reliability engineer, while creating reliable products, permits continuation and growth as a reliability professional.
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.
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…]
