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Home » Archives for Fred Schenkelberg

Fred Schenkelberg — Thought Leader

Author of CRE Preparation Notes, Musings", NoMTBF, multiple books & ebooks>, co-host on Speaking of Reliability>/a>, and speaker in the Accendo Reliability Webinar Series.


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

About Fred Schenkelberg

I am the reliability expert at FMS Reliability, a reliability engineering and management consulting firm I founded in 2004. I left Hewlett Packard (HP)’s Reliability Team, where I helped create a culture of reliability across the corporation, to assist other organizations.

by Fred Schenkelberg 3 Comments

A Couple of Questions for You Concerning MTBF

A Couple of Questions for You Concerning MTBF

Do make compromises around gathering and analyzing data since you only need to report MTBF?

Do you use MTBF (exponential distribution) based test planning when you know the product has a non-constant hazard rate?

These questions came up this week via email looking for advice when directed to ignore the actual situation and just do what the customer wants.

I’m traveling this week, rather jet-lagged today, so going to keep this one short.

How would you answer these questions? What advice would you give someone using exponential based reporting, test planning, or data analysis approaches knowing the customer expects that process yet the data and your experience suggest you should use another method  (Weibull or MCF, for example)?

Please add you comments below and let’s prepare a list of what one should say or use to respond to such actions.

 

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

How to Judge a Reliability Book

How to Judge a Reliability Book

By it’s cover no doubt. The title and cover are important, this is true. When you judge a reliability book we often first see and evaluate the cover.

The author? Do you buy the book based on who wrote or edited it?

Do you have a quick scan or check for key features before you add the book to your library? I’m curious how you select a book to use a reference for your work. The books we read and use for work shape our work, thus it’s important to have the right works at our disposal. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Engineering Framework to Assess Equipment Reliability

Engineering Framework to Assess Equipment Reliability

Engineering Framework to Assess Equipment Reliability of Air Fin Coolers in Process Plant Industries

podcast episode with guest speaker Dheerajkumar Narang

Air fin coolers are one of the most important assets in process plant facilities for ensuring continued operational excellence and production rate of the process plant. There are numerous remaining life assessment (RLA) and reliability engineering (RE) methodologies available for performing condition assessment of the air fin coolers. Most methodologies concentrate on the mechanical integrity (MI) aspects of air fin coolers such as the header box and fin tubes life assessment using recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices (RAGAGEP) to primarily address the loss of containment (process fluid) scenarios. There is rarely a comprehensive methodology or framework that also covers the dynamic parts such as fin blades, electrical motor, gear box and propeller (fan) in assessing remaining life of the air fin coolers. This article will outline a thorough reliability engineering or remaining life assessment framework (holistic methodology) that will cover both the mechanical integrity (header box and fin tubes) and reliability aspects (fin blades, electrical motor, gear box and propeller) aspects enabling the asset integrity (reliability & maintenance) engineering personnel to generate a technical, coherent, and auditable reliability report for the air fin coolers. This technical webinar is based on a poster session that was originally presented at the 2024 AiCHE Spring Meeting and 20th Global Congress on Process Safety, New Orleans, LA.
[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Should One Profit From Failures?

Should One Profit From Failures?

“Do not improve reliability as it cuts into our repair activity profits.” Is this a way to run a reliability program?

I’ve seen this in action and that company is no longer in business. In another situation the field service department withheld vital information to improve products lest his department (and self-importance) dwindle.

Is this a bad business model, or is it just my thinking it not so smart? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Fundamentals of Derating

Fundamentals of Derating

Fundamentals of Derating

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

This one is for those involved with the design of electronics. Clustering a few standard components is a standard way to bring functionality to your product, yet considering how those components may fail is important to create a robust and reliability product.

Derating is the method of selecting components with sufficient rating to withstand variations in stress(es) they may experience. Let’s explore why derating is important, the difference it can make, and a few methods to implement derating with your design team.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

3 Types of MTBF Stories

The MTBF Stories You Tell Can Cause Change

Stories communicate well. We have been telling stories long before the invention of writing or the internet. The MTBF stories we tell communicate our ideas, suggestions, and recommendations.

There are differences between good and poor stories. How you tell a story matters as well as the subject of the story. Now, MTBF stories may not be the most thrilling or entertaining, yet there are stories on MTBF topics that matter.

Let’s explore using the power of story to cause those around us to better understand and avoid the use of MTBF. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Different Data Same Decision

Different Data Same Decision

Different Data Same Decision

Let say you have some time to failure data on your equipment. A common action is to calculate the MTBF. All well and good until you expect to make a meaningful decision based on the calculation.

Using just the mean of the data, the MTBF value is likely to provide you with a less-than-useful bit of information. Thus, your decision will be rather random or worthless.

Let’s explore just how this simple calculation of perfectly good data can mislead your decision-making. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Discussions and MTBF Questions

Discussions and MTBF Questions

The Importance of the Discussions around MTBF Questions

The best way to help others understand and stop using MTBF is to engage them in a discussion. I get questions concerning MTBF or reliability a few times a week. I attempt to answer each and every one, plus adding a follow up question or two.

In person or online, ask and answer MTBF questions. You not only improve your understanding of MTBF and reliability, you improve your still at tell stories to help affect change across your industry. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Are We Teaching Reliability All Wrong?

Are We Teaching Reliability All Wrong?

Let’s Demand Better Reliability Engineering Content

Teaching reliability occurs through textbooks, technical papers, peers, mentors, and courses. The many sources available tend to use MTBF as a primary vehicle to describe system reliability.

What has gone wrong with our education process? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

5 Reasons Rate of Change is Important

5 Reasons Rate of Change is Important

A simplifying assumption associated with using MTTF or MTBF implies a constant hazard rate. Some assume we’re in the useful life section of the bathtub curve. Others do not understand what assumptions they are making.

Using MTTF or MTBF has many problems and as regular reader here know, we should avoid using these metrics.

By using MTTF or MTBF we also lose information. We are unable to measure or track the rate of change of our equipment or system’s failure rates (hazard rate). The simple average is just an average and does not contain the essential information we need to make decisions.

Let’s explore five different reasons the rate of change of a failure rate is important to measure and track. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF Tagged With: Failure Rate

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Fundamentals of Metric Monitoring

Fundamentals of Metric Monitoring

Fundamentals of Metric Monitoring

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

Following along the idea stated by Lord Kelvin, “…when you can measure what your are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it…”, we have organizations measuring reliability performance. Not that measuring something is managing it, those are two different activies. Yet, using various metrics that we track on a regular basis does provide some useful information if done well.

Let’s explore a few ways that I’ve seen reliability metric monitoring. Let’s also examine a simple process to establish, maintain, and end metrics. Measuring something has an expense, so it must also provide value. If the value is not there, or it’s not useful for making decisions, then either improve the metric system or end the metric.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Pakistan Budgets with MTBF

Pakistan Budgets with MTBF

Now for something completely different. Roaming the net looking for an interesting advertisement or data sheet with a ‘great’ (i.e. bad) example of the mis use of MTBF, ran across that MTBF is actually being used by at least one government for department budgeting.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Worst Reliability Requirement

The Worst Reliability Requirement

by Mark Powell

Most of us have seen reliability specified using a requirement like the following:

The Zeus 5000 SUV shall have an MTBF of 144,269.5 miles with a 90% confidence.

Some readers may not have seen reliability requirements specified in any other way.  What they have always seen has read something like:  The widget shall have an MTBF of X with a Y% confidence.  This reliability requirement structure is rather ubiquitousin military and aerospace specifications, which along with Mil-HDBK-217, have been major influences in reliability specification practices for decades in many industries.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

MTBF Eradication

MTBF Eradication

After a discussion with a client this morning, and their motor vendor’s reliability engineer asked for a reference for a sample size calculation formula I recommended, I had a short email exchange with said reliability engineer. In my note with the references, I included an aside with a link to this site. He liked the site and agreed that MTBF was often misunderstood and not useful. He asked if the store sold much in the way of NoMTBF logo’ed merchandise – it doesn’t btw. I thought about how and why this site and the store exist and that invited my passion on this topic once again.

We need to do something to further the eradication of MTBF.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, NoMTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Fundamentals of Allocation

Fundamentals of Allocation

Fundamentals of Allocation

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

The dividing up of a reliability goal is one way to specify reliability goals for specific key elements of your product. Yet, that is not the only purpose of allocation. It can and should be a key practice to get your team working toward a common goal in a unified and collaborative manner.

Let’s discuss a couple of easy ways to accomplish reliability allocation or apportionment, then examine a valuable way to use this tool to improve the chances of achieving your overall reliability goal.

[Read more…]

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