Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

Home » Archives for Carl S. Carlson » Page 5

Carl S. Carlson — Thought Leader

Author of Inside FMEA articles, FMEA Resources page, and multiple books, and a co-host on Speaking of Reliability.


This author's archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.

by Leave a Comment

Key Teaching Principle #2: Connection

  As covered in the first article in this series, Principles of Effective Teaching, reliability engineers, FMEA team leaders, and other quality and reliability professionals are often called upon to teach the principles of reliability or FMEA. Whether you are a student who wants to enhance your learning experience, an instructor who wants to improve teaching results, or an engineer who wishes to convey knowledge to another person, this series will offer practical knowledge and advice.

The Role of Personal Connection When Teaching

Invisible threads are the strongest ties   Friedrich Nietzsche

Key Teaching Principle # 2 is the instructor maintains a genuine connection with each of the students.

Our scientific knowledge has accelerated so rapidly that we sometimes forget the importance of human connection to our well being.

[Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

Key Teaching Principle #1: Understanding

As covered in the first article in this series, Principles of Effective Teaching, reliability engineers, FMEA team leaders, and other quality and reliability professionals are often called upon to teach the principles of reliability or FMEA. Whether you are a student who wants to enhance your learning experience, an instructor who wants to improve teaching results, or an engineer who wishes to convey knowledge to another person, this series will offer practical knowledge and advice.

Understand What You Teach

Key Teaching Principle # 1 is the instructor demonstrates a solid understanding of fundamentals, speaking directly to students, and not reading slides.

“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato

[Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

When is FMEA complete?

“Life calls not for perfection, but for completeness.”  Carl Jung

One of the common FMEA questions that comes up is: When is an FMEA complete? You’d think it would be simple, but many organizations and practitioners get it wrong.

In this article, I’ll begin with the purpose of Design and Process FMEAs, and from there, we’ll examine two very different approaches to completing an FMEA.

[Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

New Series: Principles of Effective Teaching

Principles of Effective Teaching

“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” Albert Einstein

Reliability engineers, FMEA team leaders, and other quality and reliability professionals are often called upon to teach the principles of reliability or FMEA. This article is the beginning of a new series called “The principles of effective teaching.”

If you want to convey knowledge to another person, you are teaching. If you want to learn from another person who is teaching, you will benefit from learning these principles.

[Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

FMEA Effect – Mitigated or Unmitigated?

FMEA Effect – Mitigated or Unmitigated?

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”  Albert Einstein

I always encourage readers to ask questions, and include a link in my article to make it easy. Asking questions is a great way to learn.

A reader recently asked, “When performing an FMEA, should the effect consider the mitigated case or unmitigated case? In this article we will look at different aspects that can be considered in order to answer the question.

[Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

Operator Error?

An “Inside FMEA” reader recently asked a question on the subject of Process FMEAs, specifically whether assigning the cause as “operator error” is useful. This article will share insights into the nature of a cause in Process FMEA, and whether describing cause as “operator error” adds value.

Fred and I podcasted on this topic. Link to the podcast is here.

I’ve seen literally hundreds of Process FMEAs that list “operator error” as the cause of a process related failure mode. Let me be as clear as I can. Assigning “operator error” as the cause in a Process FMEA does not add value. I’ll explain. [Read more…]

by Leave a Comment

The Future of Reliability Engineering

The Future of Reliability Engineering

Guest Post by Carl Carlson (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan

The Oxford English dictionary defines “reliability” as “the quality of being able to be trusted to do what somebody wants or needs.”

The textbook definition for “reliability” is “the probability that an item will perform its intended function for a designated period of time without failure under specified operating and environmental conditions.”

In this article, I will share a brief outline of the current and future state of reliability engineering, what works and doesn’t work, and why it matters to all of us.

[Read more…]