Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • About Us
    • Colophon
    • Survey
  • Reliability.fm
    • Speaking Of Reliability
    • Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast
    • Quality during Design
    • CMMSradio
    • Way of the Quality Warrior
    • Critical Talks
    • Asset Performance
    • Dare to Know
    • Maintenance Disrupted
    • Metal Conversations
    • The Leadership Connection
    • Practical Reliability Podcast
    • Reliability Hero
    • Reliability Matters
    • Reliability it Matters
    • Maintenance Mavericks Podcast
    • Women in Maintenance
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • NoMTBF
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • ASQR&R
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Aasan Asset Management
      • AI & Predictive Maintenance
      • Asset Management in the Mining Industry
      • CMMS and Maintenance Management
      • CMMS and Reliability
      • Conscious Asset
      • EAM & CMMS
      • Everyday RCM
      • History of Maintenance Management
      • Life Cycle Asset Management
      • Maintenance and Reliability
      • Maintenance Management
      • Plant Maintenance
      • Process Plant Reliability Engineering
      • RCM Blitz®
      • ReliabilityXperience
      • Rob’s Reliability Project
      • The Intelligent Transformer Blog
      • The People Side of Maintenance
      • The Reliability Mindset
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Breaking Bad for Reliability
      • Field Reliability Data Analysis
      • Metals Engineering and Product Reliability
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Product Validation
      • Reliability by Design
      • Reliability Competence
      • Reliability Engineering Insights
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
      • Reliability Knowledge
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
      • Equipment Risk and Reliability in Downhole Applications
      • Operational Risk Process Safety
    • on Systems Thinking
      • The RCA
      • Communicating with FINESSE
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability
      • Inside and Beyond HALT
      • Inside FMEA
      • Institute of Quality & Reliability
      • Integral Concepts
      • Learning from Failures
      • Progress in Field Reliability?
      • R for Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Using Python
      • Reliability Reflections
      • Statistical Methods for Failure-Time Data
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • The Hardware Product Develoment Lifecycle
      • The Manufacturing Academy
  • eBooks
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Glossary
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Openings
    • Books
    • Webinar Sources
    • Journals
    • Higher Education
    • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Your Courses
    • 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge
    • Live Courses
      • Introduction to Reliability Engineering & Accelerated Testings Course Landing Page
      • Advanced Accelerated Testing Course Landing Page
    • Integral Concepts Courses
      • Reliability Analysis Methods Course Landing Page
      • Applied Reliability Analysis Course Landing Page
      • Statistics, Hypothesis Testing, & Regression Modeling Course Landing Page
      • Measurement System Assessment Course Landing Page
      • SPC & Process Capability Course Landing Page
      • Design of Experiments Course Landing Page
    • The Manufacturing Academy Courses
      • An Introduction to Reliability Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Statistics
      • An Introduction to Quality Engineering
      • Quality Engineering Statistics
      • FMEA in Practice
      • Process Capability Analysis course
      • Root Cause Analysis and the 8D Corrective Action Process course
      • Return on Investment online course
    • Industrial Metallurgist Courses
    • FMEA courses Powered by The Luminous Group
      • FMEA Introduction
      • AIAG & VDA FMEA Methodology
    • Barringer Process Reliability Introduction
      • Barringer Process Reliability Introduction Course Landing Page
    • Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
    • Foundations of RCM online course
    • Reliability Engineering for Heavy Industry
    • How to be an Online Student
    • Quondam Courses
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Live Events
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home
Home » Articles » NoMTBF » The MTBF Estimation Wizard

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The MTBF Estimation Wizard

The MTBF Estimation Wizard

Get Your MTBF Estimation Here

MTBF is a magic method for predicting time to failure for your new design. On this page we present to you the fastest way to achieving MTBF.

Maybe The Best Function ever!

Zoltar says that your design has an MTBF of:

Years!

If you don’t like this number, Zoltar can give you another. Just click here: 

or try a simple refresh/reload of the page.

Note: This function was released on April 1st, 2009. Have Fun!


This method of MTBF estimation is as good or quite possibly better than others in common use. I trust Zoltar will serve your well.

A few years ago, a clever reliability engineer created this bit of code for an internal company site.

The intent is to encourage discussion about reliability and improving product reliability performance. The idea is to help those in the organization looking for a quick estimate of MTBF find one. Then the team could engage with them to determine the actual reliability questions and help provide answers.

Estimating, calculating, or predicting MTBF is rather a pointless exercise. So, if all you need a number, ask Zoltar. If you want to understand the reliability of your system, well that is not found by looking for MTBF.

How do you encourage your teams and industry to avoid looking for just the MTBF number? Add you thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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.

« Test Failure during Validation: Is it a Disaster or a Blessing
10 Critical Warning Signs Your New Product Development is at Risk »

Comments

  1. Michael Dashuta says

    April 12, 2017 at 1:47 PM

    Fred,
    The link is generating a warning message: “Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern” could please give the actual URL?
    What is expected to happen upon connecting following the link?

    Thank you,

    Michael

    Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 12, 2017 at 1:55 PM

      HI Michael, it’s a random number generating java script. MS appear to not like scripts in a post… not sure how widespread that is, so thanks for letting me know.

      Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 13, 2017 at 9:46 AM

      my first attempt to hook up the wizard used Java scripts, which triggers alerts with a few browsers. Moving to html only solution and it now doesn’t work on all browsers… more work to get this working for all. In the meantime, just pick your favorite value and go with that. cheers, Fred

      Reply
  2. WILLIAM THORLAY says

    April 12, 2017 at 2:40 PM

    Fred,

    I just clicked “I feel lucky!” but, nothing happened. What is the trick?

    Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 12, 2017 at 2:44 PM

      I updated the scripts behind the post and it should be working now.

      The I feel lucky button just refreshes the screen which reruns the MTBF Estimation function.

      Cheers,

      Fred

      Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 13, 2017 at 9:44 AM

      Hi William, it appears that on certain browsers the refresh doesn’t reset the wizard properly, so I’m off into HTML land to sort out a way to help the wizard properly think about the chance to rethink the problem. cheers Fred

      Reply
  3. Tim Gaens says

    April 13, 2017 at 3:26 PM

    Remove the 1st of April reference and I can possible convince some managers this is the correct way of doing MTBF.
    Just add the possibility to get a higher random number.

    Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 13, 2017 at 4:20 PM

      The unfortunate part is many really believe MTBF isn’t a random number most of the time. cheers, Fred

      Reply
  4. Fred Schenkelberg says

    April 14, 2017 at 10:10 AM

    A comment on Linkedin include a link to a wonderful writeup on replacing Mil-Hdbk-217

    https://www.electronics-cooling.com/2004/05/nostradamitech/amp/

    check it out, well written and rather thought provoking, too.

    Cheers,

    Fred

    Reply
  5. Johannes Dissing says

    April 26, 2017 at 2:19 PM

    I made this, You got. it. from Thomas some time ago right?
    http://nomtbf.com/2013/01/grundfos-mtbf-policy/

    Johannes

    Reply
    • Fred Schenkelberg says

      April 26, 2017 at 2:29 PM

      HI Johannes, yes Thomas sent it over and now we even have a working version on the site – great work and story you have with it. Thanks, Fred

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The NoMTBF logo

Devoted to the eradication of the misuse of MTBF.

Photo of Fred SchenkelbergArticles by Fred Schenkelberg and guest authors

in the NoMTBF article series

Recent Posts

  • The Rivian Paradox
  • You Don’t Need (More) Reliability Engineers
  • Listening with Intent: The Missing Skill in Design Thinking
  • 10 Reasons to Avoid MTBF
  • MTBF, who are you?

Join Accendo

Receive information and updates about articles and many other resources offered by Accendo Reliability by becoming a member.

It’s free and only takes a minute.

Join Today

© 2025 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Cookies Policy

Book the Course with John
  Ask a question or send along a comment. Please login to view and use the contact form.
This site uses cookies to give you a better experience, analyze site traffic, and gain insight to products or offers that may interest you. By continuing, you consent to the use of cookies. Learn how we use cookies, how they work, and how to set your browser preferences by reading our Cookies Policy.