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Home » Articles » A Couple of Questions for You Concerning MTBF

by Fred Schenkelberg 4 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

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.

« Wear Out Prediction Model
5: Design & Planning – Part 2 Planning »

Comments

  1. Nils says

    June 29, 2017 at 9:34 AM

    I have to present MTBF, knowing that is complete BS, but I always attach a real test plan, reliability block diagram, R(t) with CL for the first, and second year and expected EOL. So if someboday wants to know the facts, he can find them and ask. I stopped arguing about MTBF, but I can’t stop myself to make a mark like: “Do not make any decisions based on the MTBF value”.

    Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      July 1, 2017 at 5:12 PM

      Hi Nils, good for you and keep up the appropriate and hopefully thought provoking comments when you have to document MTBF. cheers, Fred

      Reply
      • Jingsong Xie says

        June 21, 2025 at 6:35 AM

        Hi Nils, do you mean handboook MTBFs or estimates?

        Reply
    • Jingsong Xie says

      June 23, 2025 at 6:48 AM

      for what purpose do you present MTBF, e.g. for maintenance planning or design verification etc.? I might be able to provide some input with details of this case.

      Reply

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