Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Chris and Fred discussing another question from a listener based on ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ or ALARP. This is used a lot in risk management and analysis … but what is it?
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Chris and Fred discussing service reliability based on a listener question where we don’t just look at reliability as it applies to an item, product or device. Instead … we look at ‘reliability of a service’ … or system, … or process. How can this help a farmer who is trying to work out how to best supply water to his cattle?
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OK … that is a little macabre. However, reliability engineers need to ask themselves this question a lot. And there are a lot of wrong answers out there. Some textbooks say that it is ‘commonly accepted’ to use this thing called the exponential distribution. Other books say that if the ‘Weibull shape parameter is 6 or greater … redesign!’ Do you have any idea what this means? If not, this webinar will be a nice little introduction for you!
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Chris and Fred discuss warning signs … especially those that revolve around culture … are often ignored. And it takes a ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’ to do something about this. Why is this?
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Chris and Fred discuss the MTBF … and if and when it can be used … sometimes in reliability engineering. We know that the MTBF is one of the most chronically overused (and misused) so-called ‘reliability’ metrics. But is there scope for it to be used … sometimes?
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Chris and Fred discuss the whole idea of ‘demonstration testing’ … and how it may be ‘chronically’ overused or at least misunderstood. Heard of ‘demonstration testing’ and need to learn more?
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Chris and Fred discuss some of the issues you face when selecting a (potentially incorrect) model. And how much uncertainty still remains when you do. Hate statistics … but need a nice and easy introduction to this sort of stuff?
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Chris and Fred discuss the term ‘failure’ … and should we use it?
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Chris and Fred discuss what it means to be ‘wrapped around the axle.’ It is one of those perfect analogies … especially for people who fall for imperfect analogies! Like that assuming that all we have to do is wait for ‘early failures’ to disappear before we get into to the ‘bottom part of the bathtub curve’ … really?
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Chris and Kirk discuss how militaries go about making and getting reliable stuff. And this is sometimes more successful than others …
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Chris and Carl ask each other … by how much do FMEAs improve reliability? … or reduce failure?
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One of my more unfortunate memories of my early military career is the death of a soldier on a training exercise. I was posted to a place very close to the equator … along with the heat and humidity that came with it. The soldier who died suffered from heat stroke, brought on by dehydration. And when we looked back on what went wrong, a key issue was that the training exercise risk assessment was ‘word for word’ identical to previous risk assessments when it came to managing heat related illnesses.
Chris and Fred ask each other ‘what makes a good design review?’ This is a great question. Reliability engineering can help! (… click here to read an article about this). If you want to learn more – listen to this podcast!
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Organizations are all about ‘success.’ Being ‘successful.’ Which can many different things to many different people. ‘Success’ is not simply the ‘antithesis of failure.’ One could argue that ‘mediocrity’ in many cases is accepted as the antithesis of ‘failure.’ ‘Mediocrity’ is hardly the same as ‘success.’
Organizational success means that a lot of different people need to be doing lots of very different, but very important things. And this often means things that can go unnoticed. The ‘one percenters.’ Getting things done right the first time.
Chris and Fred discuss the difference between ‘making’ and ‘checking’ reliability. And there is a difference. This podcast follows on from Chris’s article about a US Department of Defense (DoD) quick reference guide on a ‘Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Body of Knowledge.’ The problem with this document was it was all about ‘checking’ reliability – and not enough ‘making’ reliability.
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