Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Let’s face it, the field of reliability engineering is diverse and full of statistics, models and detailed analysis. The detailed calculations, the building of models and analysis, have been performed with great success in the past and currently. The models built through manual calculation have been successful and demonstrated the importance of reliability engineering.
The rule is simple. For high-risk issues, the FMEA team needs to properly identify the cause(s) and associated failure mechanism(s). So, what exactly is a failure mechanism?
“Nature never breaks her own laws.” Leonardo da Vinci
On December 29, 2018, RCM celebrated its 40th birthday. This process offers us two very important gifts. And they are just as important (if not more relevant!) today as they were in 1978. [Read more…]
Most senior managements don’t know that Reliability can get them high profits very quickly. And therefore high return on investment. Hyundai’s Ten Year Warranty. Their market share was going downhill for over ten years, suddenly it started to go upwards instead. All because of high reliability!
The impact of reliability extends far beyond reliability itself. It establishes the cost of warrants, repair, maintenance, logistics and the indirect costs of unavailability, downtime, and the COST OF SAFETY RECALLS which runs to hundreds of million dollars., and throughout the life of the product. This paper presents an outside-the-box view of how to get the best results by aiming at twice the life in the product specification and by preventing the high-risk failure modes resulting in an extraordinary return on investment, as much as 10,000%. [Read more…]
People are drawn to use of the blocking feature in Design of Experiments quite often. My experience shows that it is overused. This video explains my rationale. [Read more…]
“I told you so…” is so often cried after something has gone wrong. But was that ‘telling‘ stated clearly and unequivocally before things went wrong or was it merely a passing counterview against a probable likelihood based on an alternative possibility.
When a risk manifests itself and takes a grip on a project it’s amazing how quickly hindsight can kick in. This comes in the form of free advice as to what could have happened to avoid the risk ‘after the fact’. These latter-day soothsayers were, for some reason or other, unprepared to prove their prophetic ability before the fact preferring, it would seem, to go with the flow as an uninvolved observer but officious bystander when all facts are revealed. [Read more…]
Have you ever wondered how RCM principles emerged? They were born from a hard-fought lesson in the mid 1960s by the commercial airline industry. Watch as I explain from 25,000 feet! [Read more…]
So where should the planner focus to be effective? This clip shows where to focus your energy to improve your overall planning effectiveness. [Read more…]
A fun look about test planning. It has shaped how I look at the topic and how I perform my work. I hope you enjoy it! [Read more…]
Why does COSO ERM:2017[i] use the word “enterprise” in the title of their standard and ISO 31000:2018[ii] is a “risk management standard?” CERM Academy also has a book on this topic[iii]. So, what does the concept of an “enterprise” impart to an organization, if anything, to set apart the COSO standard from the ISO standard?
A search of the definition for enterprise covers the entire gamut of possible uses. There appears to be little difference between business enterprise and the business itself. [Read more…]
Join me and Elvis Presley in a game of “Reliability Centered Maintenance, True or False.” In front of the iconic “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign, we explore: 1) What RCM can yield; 2) What assets you can apply RCM to; and 3) Whether or not you need comprehensive failure data to do RCM. [Read more…]
We discuss what traits make successful reliability journeys happen. This is part 1 of 2. [Read more…]
If you recall I went on a slightly crazy adventure up to the edge of the article circle with my adventure buddy, my daughter Natalie, 11. We almost froze to death on a mountain just to see the Northern Lights (story here). But we also did something we both have always wanted to do and knew would be epic, a dog sled ride. The first thing I have to say about it is holy crap those dogs are fast. It felt like you could blow the doors off a snowmobile if you came across one.
The prior article, MSA 3: Gage Bias, focused on defining and calculating a point estimate of gage bias. A method was presented to determine if the bias was statistically significant. If significant, the bias would be applied to the data as a correction factor.
This article discusses gage bias linearity over a measurement range.
Root Cause Analysis is different than “problem solving.” It is highly visible with money on the table. How can you approach it? How can you be successful? This video gives some fundamentals of my approach. [Read more…]
