Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
“Risk analysis is the art of turning uncertainty into actionable insight.” — Anonymous
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for Technical Risk Analysis.
By definition, “risk analysis” is “the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and estimating the levels of risk involved in a situation, process, or system, in order to inform decision-making. [Read more…]
Article by Mike Freier
In our last blog post, we delved into the journey of transitioning from engineering and beta units to high-volume production. We explored the crucial steps of choosing a reliable contract manufacturer (CM), negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement, and providing comprehensive documentation to support the product assembly process.
Now, let’s dive into our next blog piece, where we’ll uncover the world of mechanical tooling options that will support your product’s successful development and scale-up into high-volume production. We’ll be exploring 3D printing, soft tooling, and hard tooling, each offering unique advantages and trade-offs. By understanding these differences, you’ll be empowered to make better informed decisions and select the best strategy to support your business.
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When my car fails to start, as a customer I only know that my car didn’t start.
When my phone fails to turn on, or the dishwasher leaks, or the printer jams, I only know I’ve experienced an unwanted outcome.
I really do not care, at the moment, why the coffee maker is not producing my morning cup of coffee. My first thought is ‘now where do I find a cup of coffee?’ As a reliability engineer I’m naturally curious about what caused the failure and can I fix it immediately to get the morning cup brewing.
My thinking does not classify the failure or the source of the failure as a quality or reliability problem. Then why is it that some organizations split reported field failures thus? [Read more…]
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.
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What can a 25-year veteran of condition monitoring tell you about how to do better maintenance and get
better reliability?
First a little background. Max started his vibration analysis monitoring company back in the late 1970’s. He and his company developed expertise and technologies in condition monitoring over many years. They monitored and reported on a large range and number of machines, and worked for numerous companies. He and his people were the recognised experts in vibration monitoring and control. [Read more…]
Today’s Gremlin – “sweat the asset”, truly believes that running the plant and equipment as hard as possible is good for business. He couldn’t be more wrong!
This gremlin wants to produce more in a short time and runs the equipment at or even over its design capacity. In one plant in a big mine I met one of these – a production superintendent who believed he was doing his best when he ran the plant hard and just avoided tripping breakers! Running that hard increases stress on the equipment, often ends up in overloading it, and causes it to fail prematurely.
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The ability of machines to communicate—and their increasing intelligence—is an exponentially accelerating trend spanning many industries. This technology trend is not slowing down in any way, and the more it is adopted, the more it will continue to accelerate, transforming our personal, professional, and social lives.
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Maintenance professionals have long been regarded as the unsung heroes of organizational operations, ensuring machines run smoothly and assets remain productive. Yet, in today’s competitive business environment, the role of maintenance has expanded beyond just fixing what’s broken. To truly drive organizational success, maintenance leaders and teams must possess a strong sense of business acumen. This blend of operational expertise and strategic understanding allows them to align their efforts with overarching business goals, transforming maintenance from a cost center into a value-creating powerhouse.
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Welcome to Part 3 of our in-depth RCM mini-series! In today’s video, we continue our dentist-inspired case study by exploring Failure Consequences and diving deep into the world of Preventive Maintenance. This session is packed with practical insights that reveal how to properly establish Preventive Maintenance tasks and their intervals.
What You’ll Learn:
In manufacturing and quality assurance, we rarely have the time—or budget—to inspect every single part in a batch. That’s where acceptance sampling comes in. It’s a statistical tool that helps us decide whether to accept or reject a lot of material based on a random sample. But more than just a shortcut, acceptance sampling is a structured decision-making process that balances quality expectations with efficiency and risk.
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Dear freinds, we are glad to release this part-3 of our series on FMEA. In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe illustrates two application case studies in using DFMEA.
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Software packages and algorithms help speed up calculations in Reliability Engineering Analysis. And obviously in other specialties. They are known as Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Software. Preprogrammed formulas can be readily applied by the analyst to provide modeling results. Additionally, graphics and other informative visual representations can be obtained at a mouse click. This helps showcase issues in an operating environment. And lead to relevant action to address those issues. Our human brain has cognitive limitations when analyzing highly complex systems such as Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) Models. Software helps to overcome those limitations.
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Article by Mike Freier
In the last blog post, we discussed how to validate your product and cover some of the important testing that your engineering teams should plan on to ensure your product meets all the requirements outlined in the engineering design specification.
Transitioning from engineering and beta units to high volume production involves finding a contract manufacturer (CM) as well as sub-tier volume suppliers, signing a deal with the CM, and handing off the set of data and instructions to make your product. Read on to learn what to lookout for in each step in the process of scaling your product into volume manufacturing.
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Jobs at Apple has done it. You can, too.
Change an industry. The advent of iTunes and iPods forever changed how the world buys and listens to music.
While Jobs had the resources of Apple to help make the change happen. It still started as an idea (may or may not have been Jobs’ idea, I don’t know). It grew and created enough momentum to effect a change across an entire industry.
Change is hard.
If you have tried to help your team move in a new direction or consider the reliability risks present in the current design, then you know change is difficult to make happen. You most likely have been successful a few times, and not a few also. I know I’ve crashed into the rocky spit more often than I can count. [Read more…]
After successful DV testing, the product moves into the PV phase. PV testing is conducted on units that are manufactured using the final production process, materials, and equipment. The purpose of PV is to validate that the production process can consistently produce units that meet the design specifications.
The sample size for PV is typically smaller than for DV, as indicated by the user input of around 10 samples. This is because the focus of PV is on the consistency and capability of the production process rather than the design itself.
These tests are crucial for products that incorporate complex mechanical, electrical, and chemical components, as they must perform reliably under a wide range of operating conditions and comply with stringent safety and environmental regulations.
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