I am a rock climber. Climbing relies on skill, strength, knowledge, luck, and sound gear. Falling is a part of the sport, and with the right gear, the sport is safe. So far, I’ve enjoy no equipment failures.

I do not know, nor want to know, the MTBF (or MTTF) of any of my climbing gear. I’m not even sure this information would be available. And, all the gear I use has a finite chance of failing every time the equipment is in use. Part of my confidence is that the probability of failure is really low.

The classic formula for availability is MTBF divided by MTBF plus MTTF. Standard. And pretty much wrong most of the time.

Recently, working for a bottling plant design team, we pursued design options to improve the availability and throughput of the new line. The equipment would remain the same: filler, capper, labeler, etc. So we decided to gather the last six months or so of operating data, which included up and down time. Furthermore, the data included time to failure and time to repair information.

How Good is MTBF as a Metric?

Let’s look at the characteristics of a sound reliability metric and how MTBF is not true or beneficial. A metric should be true, beneficial, and timely. We’ll start with a rock climbing analogy.

A bolted hanger along a rock climbing route is often a welcome site. It provides the climber safety (clipping the rope to the bolt), direction (this is the way), and confidence. Does MTBF as a metric do the same for your organization?

As climbers, we count on the bolts to provide support in case something goes wrong or we need to rest along the route.

A reliability metric is often used in the same way as a climbing bolt. The measure, whether MTBF, Reliability, or Failure Rate, assures that the product’s reliability performance is as expected.

The organization’s profits are or will be safe. The development team uses the measures to guide design and supply chain decisions. The measure provides confidence to the organization regarding meeting customer expectations around reliability.

Note: This first article in the NoMTBF campaign was published on April 1st, 2009. Thus, we’ve been at this and making progress for a long time and come a long was since starting the NoMTBF campaign. I am looking forward to your comments, contributions, and suggestions.

Fred

At first, MTBF seems like a commonly used and valuable measure of reliability. Trained as a statistician and understanding the use of the expected value that MTBF represented, I thought, ‘Cool, this is useful.’

Then, the discussions with engineers, technical sales folks, and other professionals about reliability using MTBF started. And the awareness that not everyone, and at times it seems very few, truly understood MTBF and how to properly use the measure.

Let’s think of this as a crowdsourced project. The first version of this book is a compilation of NoMTBF.com articles. It lays out why we do not want to use MTBF and what to do instead (to some extent).

With your input on success stories, how to make progress using better metrics, and input of examples, stories, case studies, etc., the next version of the book will be much better and much more practical.
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