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Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Nothing can undermine FMEA results more than approaching the subject from the wrong philosophy. In this article readers will learn how use key focus areas to achieve effective FMEAs in all applications.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
Thomas Jefferson
Should an FMEA result in design or manufacturing improvements? Should it ensure that tests discover the right problems? What are the objectives of FMEAs? Whether you are new to FMEA or an experienced practitioner, there is always something to learn. This is the first in a series of articles on FMEA that should expand the knowledge of every reader.
“Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.” ~ Henry Petroski
Do you consider yourself new to FMEA, or are you an FMEA expert?
Or somewhere in between?
I’m a great believer that knowledge of any tool such as FMEA, is a lifelong journey. In the new series of articles called Inside FMEA, my intention is to bring to life the subject of FMEA, and provide value to readers from all levels of experience.
Each week I will publish a new article on Accendo. The topics will span the full range of FMEA applications, and offer guidance to real-world challenges that FMEA teams face each and every day. [Read more…]
Often times the maintenance team is focused on preventing failures in the facility. All failures need to be addressed and no failures are acceptable. This mindset may be holding back the uptime in your facility. How is this? After all, if we strive to prevent all failures shouldn’t uptime improve?
Most organizations do not have the resources to prevent every single failure and as such, resources are often pulled from failure to failure. When the organization focuses on the consequences of the failure, instead of the failure itself, it can free up the resources to improve reliability. Once the consequences are understood, running equipment to failure becomes an option. This allows the team to focus on preventing the failures that make a difference to the business. [Read more…]
ISO 31000 is going to be used more often as more ISO certified companies adopt Risk Based Thinking. However, ISO 31000 can be challenging. Why?
Interestingly, the descriptive nature of the ISO 31000 standard may well be its strength, but may also be its weakness. The standard without the proper guidance of a risk practitioner maybe come discretionary and even arbitrary.
ISO 9001:2015 has Risk Based Thinking requirements. Note ISO 31000 was developed in 2009 and is not harmonized with the new annex SL standards and ISO 9001:2015. [Read more…]
What readers will learn from this article.
The 2018 ASQ CRE Body of Knowledge has a new top-level section titled II. Risk Management.
A few of the topics, 6 of the 9, are the same or similar to topics in the previous CRE BoK. There are three new topics that extend the reliability engineers need to know, understand, and use risk management tools.
Overall the new section of Risk Management has three groups of topics:
A. Identification
B. Analysis
C. Mitigation
Let’s take a quick look at the details in this new section and highlight the changes and new elements. [Read more…]
In the previous article you learned to apply the Stuck at Fault Model (S@) to a small combinational circuit.
You can take the learning on the Full 1-bit adder and apply it to larger combinational circuit.
In testing lingo, you often hear people refer to this as the testing of random logic. Technically, there’s nothing random about the logic.
I think “random” gets used to contrast with the highly structured design of memory circuits into array of 1-bit cells. Memory test lends itself to algorithmic testing, for example the Marching 1. In random logic testing you may use algorithms to propagate your faults, that is automatically develop a test pattern.
You need to keep in mind that the logic being tested has a functional purpose and this can be implemented in a multitude of ways. Let’s take a second look at the adder function. [Read more…]
This is the bathtub curve we are often shown.
This is what a real bathtub curve looks like. [Read more…]
Just a bit of humor as we push to the end of another work week!
I turned 55 a few weeks back and just yesterday someone asked me how old I was. I had to stop for a minute to think and when I replied 55 the young Engineer who asked me the question sat back in his chair and said; “Wow! That means you have been working in the Reliability Engineering field like 35 years! I can’t imagine the changes you have seen in your career!” [Read more…]
PdM & CBM are in almost every discussion that involves improving plant performance and reducing costs. But what is the difference between the two and when should one be used over the other? This post will address those two questions and a few cautions when using these techniques. [Read more…]
Risk is an interesting concept because there are a number of definitions and interpretations. And this bears on quality because the lack of consistency can make deployment difficult.
Two elements to risk can be seen in the below definitions. There is upside risk and there is downside risk. Some risk definitions have this and others don’t. [Read more…]
What readers will learn in this article.
Cavitation is the occurrence of vapour bubbles in a liquid. A vapour bubble will form when the pressure in a liquid falls so low it boils or the temperature rises so high it boils. [Read more…]
The new CRE body of knowledge goes into effect for exams starting January 2018.
The changes include topics that has been dropped, added, or altered. There also is a new structure with 5 main groups rather than the previous seven. Overall, the BoK remained pretty much the same with a reorganization of the topics.
Reading the new BoK and comparing it to the old BoK raises a few concerns or observations. Let’s take a look at the new structure and what the changes say about the reliability engineering profession. [Read more…]
To work our ways towards understanding Design For Test (DFT)applications I am taking you back to the Stuck at Fault model (S@).
In the article which introduced you to the S@ model you learned the S@ model at the logic gate level.
Let’s build on this by applying it to combinational logic circuits.
Combinational logic has no clocked circuitry; sequential logic has clocked circuitry. In a few articles you’ll learn about test and sequential logic circuitry. [Read more…]
