Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
We have conducted hundreds of risk assessments in a number of sectors from homeland security to pension funds to Parks and Recreation departments. We have a number of hard lessons learned. These are some common mistakes we have made and seen: [Read more…]
What happens when you power up an electronics device with clocked circuits?
Well you have a clock running and you have clocked circuit elements, also known as sequential circuits. Latches, registers, basically any “memory” element. What could interfere with testing?
Do you know the state of that “memory element” when you start?
Heck No!
That’s a problem. [Read more…]
Customers want the benefits created by your product. They want the time savings, the reduced yield loss, they want simplicity, coolness, speed, etc.
Customers buy your product to solve a problem, they do not buy it to simply enjoy the features. The features have to do something of value. They have to provide a benefit.
If your product fails, the feature doesn’t work. Customers do not realize the benefit they expected.
In short, your customer wants your product to work as expected. When asked a customer will tell you they do not want to have product failures. [Read more…]
I wonder how many product tests have been undertaken and nothing has been done with the results? Maybe development activities have moved on before any results are available? Maybe the test results didn’t provide the answers that were needed? Maybe the test wasn’t focused on the critical issues. In other words, cost, time and resources were wasted.
I will present a better way to ensure value is delivered and test results are acted upon. [Read more…]
Working with product engineers to develop a reliability test early in a program can be a satisfying experience. My interactions with the product engineers are the most fruitful when there is mutual respect. I ask the product engineer questions about his goals, the product features, the supplier, and rely on his product expertise. I like to examine prototype parts and review an engineering drawing or the circuit diagrams.
A good example was when a product engineer, let’s call him Jim, approached me to develop a safety switch reliability test.
Having visited hundreds of manufacturing plants in the last 15 years, someone recently asked me if there were any traits the most reliable plants all had in common. I have listed below the top 5 signs of a reliable plant. [Read more…]
The maintenance manager is known as the leader of the maintenance department. But what if they are unclear on where they are going or need to do? It has the potential to derail the entire department. That is why this series is going to start with the maintenance manager. Once they are clear, the rest of the team can follow.
If you followed the steps in first post of the series, you would be ready to review the roles & responsibilities across the department. This post takes the next step of breaking down the individual role of the maintenance manager to help you on that journey. [Read more…]
Do you consider yourself an FMEA beginner or are you more experienced? Challenge yourself with these problems, and see how you do. One of the best ways to learn is by pondering actual application problems and seeing if you can solve them.
Capacitance level probes consist of a long rod or cable that protrude into a vessel and its contents. The instrument sets up an electric field between the probe and the tank wall using the contents of the tank as a dielectric (a nonconductor that allows an electric field to exist within itself). If the tank is non-metal, such as plastic or brick lined, two parallel rods are mounted in the level probe or a metal strip can be run on the outside of the tank. The electric field is set-up between the two probes or the probe and the metal strip. Figure 1 shows a simplified layout for a capacitance level probe. [Read more…]
ISO 31000 is 23 pages long, but these pages provide an entry level Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) guideline.
Why is this important?
An organization develops ISO 31000 ERM capabilities to provide a structured, consistent, disciplined, and achievable approach to risk management that facilitates Risk Based Thinking throughout the organization. Risk Based Thinking is composed of 1. Risk based, problem solving (RB – PS) and 2. Risk based, decision making (RB –DM). Both RB – PS and RB – DM are the basis for all management and supervision. We discuss this in our new book: ISO 31000: Enterprise Risk Management.
Interestingly, we wrote a 230 page book packed with loads of information for a 23 page standard. And oh by the way, we could have written another 200 pages. [Read more…]
Mission profiles are fundamental to any reliability prediction being valid. Without clearly defined environmental and use profiles there will be a long chain of inaccuracy that accumulates into significant errors within a product. 
This is what occurs at the following stages, or tools, if the mission profile or environment profile changes after its completion. [Read more…]
The Quality Triangle provides a method to establish priorities for a project. It strives to balance time, cost, and quality (or scope instead of quality). It does not include reliability.
Now I am a bit bias as a reliability engineer and believe a projects set of priorities should explicitly include reliability performance. Of course, there are many potential priorities, yet reliability certainly can make or break a product, it’s market acceptance, and an organization’s profitability.
So, given a quality triangle based set of priorities, how does reliability fit in? [Read more…]
As you’ve read in my previous post, I learned so much over the seven year journey of becoming an Engineering Subject Matter Expert. While there is no clear cut path, and every career is different, some of the tips below will help you minimize the detours along the way! [Read more…]
The concept of robust design is commonly discussed, but what exactly is it? What options are available for achieving robust design? How do you know if it could be appropriate for your new product or process application?
This overview helps answer those questions – contact Perrys Solutions for more specific assistance. [Read more…]
My father taught me at a young age that your name is everything and if you want to be successful in life you have to ensure that when someone hears your name in conversation or reads your name in print that the first thing they think is positive.
The world hasn’t changed from the time he told me that over 40 years ago, in fact today it’s even more critical because we now have the internet and social media.
Good news travels fast.
Bad news travels 100 times faster!
Understanding this, here are 5 tips on what your company can do to build and maintain its reputation and integrity. [Read more…]
