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on Product Reliability

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:

  • Kirk Grey — Accelerated Reliability series
  • Les Warrington — Achieving the Benefits of Reliability series
  • Adam Bahret — Apex Ridge series
  • Fred Schenkelberg — Musings on Reliability and Maintenance series
  • Chris Jackson — Reliability in Emerging Technology series

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Culture of Design for Reliability

The Culture of Design for Reliability

The Culture of Design for Reliability

The way we think and act concerning creating a reliable product or system defines the reliability culture of an origination. I trust your organization doesn’t complete the design then ask the reliability folks to ‘add the reliability element’ or ‘test to prove it’s reliable enough’.

Another ineffective approach is to perform many reliability-related tasks, like a design FMEA, HALT, ALT, derating, margin and environmental testing, life testing, demonstration testing, etc More is not better. If the focus is just doing the list of tasks, with little information acted upon, then this approach is little more than a waste of resources.

So, what is it that makes a wonderful design for reliability program? It’s not expecting the reliability team to do it on their own, nor is it checking off a long list of tasks. It is the focus across the organization, inside and outside the design and development team, that each decision made has an impact on reliability performance. As such, the work of the DfR program is to enable each decision to be well informed concerning the potential impact to reliability involved with the pending decision. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability

by Christopher Jackson 1 Comment

Do you ‘want’ something … or just ‘like the idea of it?’

Do you ‘want’ something … or just ‘like the idea of it?’

Do you ‘want’ something … or just ‘like the idea of it?’

Let’s say that someone has decided they want to get better at something. Perhaps they want to lose weight. Perhaps they want to learn a language. Perhaps they want to learn to play the guitar.

The next thing they might do is find an expert who can help them. A personal trainer. A linguist. A music teacher. They then go and find their expert. But … in the very first meeting, they tell their expert:

‘Just so you know, I am NOT going to (1) stop eating hamburgers, (2) do homework or (3) practice playing.’ [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology Tagged With: leadership, reliability management

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

How One Person Can Change the Reliability Culture

How One Person Can Change the Reliability Culture

How One Person Can Change the Reliability Culture

Nicholas W. Eyrich, Robert E. Quinn, and David P. Fessell published in the Harvard Business Review an article titled “How One Person Can Change the Conscience of an Organization”, dated December 27, 2019. In the article, they discuss how corporate transformations, while assumed to occur from the top-down, actually it is the middle managers and first-line supervisor that can make significant change happen.

They look at what it takes for one person to make a significant change within an organization. As reliability or quality professionals, we often have the opportunity to spot needed changes. It is then up to us to tackle those challenges to make the change happen. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability

by Christopher Jackson 2 Comments

So it’s COTS – of course you demand that it be reliable!

So it’s COTS – of course you demand that it be reliable!

So it’s COTS – of course you demand it be reliable!

Well, we are going COTS, so there is no point creating (or demanding) reliability specifications for it.

Really?

I was just speaking to a couple of engineers – from different organizations – who were coincidentally struggling with the reliability of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) systems. COTS is a funny term. Big contractors, governmental organizations and militaries use the term ‘COTS’ a lot. But they tend to be the only ones who do. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology Tagged With: COTS, supplier reliability

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

But does it meet our design specification?

But does it meet our design specification?

More often than we think, customers who aren’t even trying to Use Case 7 our products seem to end up doing so regardless.  That’s fine, it happens. However, it also tends to result in $1 billion + lawsuits that could have easily been avoided.

The big question is, who do YOU blame? I mean you, the person reading this article. When your team discovers a field failure root cause to be user error do you either:

  1. Investigate a way to minimize the likelihood of it happening again through design improvement or some other means?
  2. Mark the investigation as “bad customer” and move on?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Apex Ridge, Articles

by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something

Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something

Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something

In one of my recent webinars on ‘reliability culture,’ I was asked a really good question. Someone (let’s call him ‘Tim’) asked me:

How do I get the most out of my ‘ad hoc’ reliability team?

Tim had recently created a ‘reliability team’ made up of people from different areas of his organization. These people were smart, qualified, but had non-reliability engineering day jobs. They weren’t qualified reliability engineers. They weren’t idiots. And they couldn’t devote all their time to reliability. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Best Practice for Dealing with Field Failures

Best Practice for Dealing with Field Failures

Best Practice for Dealing with Field Failures

A common practice I’ve seen in organizations is to deal with field failures when they occur. This may occur when the mistaken assumption that no failure will occur due to ‘such an excellent design.”

Ben Franklin may not have been thinking about future product failures, yet his quote:

By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.

implies we need to prepare ourselves and our organization to deal with field failures. Having clear processes to deal with field failures is a best practice. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Improving Reliability with Good Judgment

Improving Reliability with Good Judgment

Improving Reliability with Good Judgment

At an early concept meeting discussing the technical strategy for the new product, the engineering teams were at an impasse. The decision matrix balanced out with three distinct options. Product reliability differed slightly with each option yet presented risks just as the considerations of cost, complexity, feature set, and time to market.

The project manager, the leader of the development program, asked a few questions, asked for input from the director of engineering, and selected a path forward.

The team accepted the decision. The project went well. Yet, I’ve often wondered how did she know which option to select. I also learned to trust her judgment on difficult decisions. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability

by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

Reliability … and why always asking ‘are we there yet’ doesn’t work

Reliability … and why always asking ‘are we there yet’ doesn’t work

Reliability … and why always asking ‘are we there yet’ doesn’t work

A common refrain from managers and engineers alike (as it relates to making or maintaining reliable products) is:

How do we know if we are there yet?

This makes reliability engineering sound like driving a car, sanding a piece of wood, mowing the lawn, or any other endeavour where efforts perfectly align with progress.

This doesn’t work for reliability. Reliability can be easy to achieve, but it needs to be thought about in a different way. And when you do, everything becomes easier. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology Tagged With: reliability goals, reliability management

by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

The “3 P’s” – Avoiding the Most Common Pitfalls of Establishing a Reliability Program

The “3 P’s” – Avoiding the Most Common Pitfalls of Establishing a Reliability Program

The “3 P’s” – Avoiding the Most Common Pitfalls of Establishing a Reliability Program

I often talk to engineers who have just been told that they are now a ‘reliability guy or girl’ for their organization. The CEO or perhaps a director decides that reliability is now important, so a group of poor unfortunates are hastily and collectively anointed as ‘the’ reliability program. Is this familiar?

Sometimes this works. Sometimes these rebranded ‘reliability guys and girls’ create amazing programs that [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology Tagged With: establishing a reliability program, reliability management, reliability program

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

Data is Beautiful

Data is Beautiful

I recently held a lunch and learn about infographics. The recorded session is below. In our work as engineers, we often spend a great deal of time extracting amazing information from complex data sets only to find no clear way to get our message to those who need it which can include leadership, peers, or even the customer.

Changing how we present information can be the difference between driving change and simply being a slide in a weekly status meeting that solicits the response “next.” 

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Apex Ridge, Articles

by Christopher Jackson 8 Comments

10 Reasons you Need to do Reliability Engineering

10 Reasons you Need to do Reliability Engineering

10 Reasons you Need to do Reliability Engineering

Reliability engineering has an image problem. It is seen as an imbugerance that destroys budget, schedule and fun. People sometimes think reliability engineering is simply statistics, data analysis and other mind-numbing stuff. Reliability purgatory. Which brings us to the first reason you need to do reliability engineering.

#1 – Reliability engineering is not reliability purgatory. Reliability purgatory is all effort and no outcomes. Reliability happens at the point of decision. Design decisions. Manufacturing decisions. Maintenance decisions. True reliability engineering helps you make better decisions – which often comes down to organized judgment and not statistics.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Reliability in Emerging Technology

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Is Making Assumptions Similar to Making Mistakes

Is Making Assumptions Similar to Making Mistakes

Is Making Assumptions Similar to Making Mistakes

Over the past week, I received a couple of interesting questions. One concerned assuming a Weibull beta value for an accelerated life test plan. The second involved assuming expected life models for elements within a reliability block diagram.

In both cases, we faced incomplete data and uncertainties, yet felt the need to assume some values in order for the math to work out. We do make assumptions in order to solve problems. We also can make mistakes that lead to unwanted consequences. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics, on Product Reliability

by Adam Bahret Leave a Comment

A Story About Plus One

A Story About Plus One

There are many scenarios that can arise throughout product development programs. There is one in particular that I have seen unfold more than once: I call it the “Plus one program.”  Don’t let the name fool you; it’s horrible to watch unfold.

A startup or established player introduces an impressive jump in industry-standard technology, or sometimes an established player introduces an innovation to their industry. Since the technology is so innovative, there is great value in getting it to market quickly even if it isn’t a mature design.  In this case, it is actually a smart move to go to market with a device that doesn’t have “ideal reliability.”  In other words, the value of getting it out there quickly is worth the field issues. Those issues will be tolerated by the customer as well,  if the technology is that good.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Apex Ridge, Articles

by Christopher Jackson Leave a Comment

You Can’t ‘Contract’ your Way to Reliability

You Can’t ‘Contract’ your Way to Reliability

You Can’t ‘Contract’ your Way to Reliability

A recent student of mine was an engineer for a rail corporation. Let’s call her Liz. Liz kept asking me ‘what do I need to put in a contract’ to make sure my suppliers take reliability seriously? She kept asking this over, and over, until I got the penny to drop. Liz eventually realized that she was the one who had to take it seriously. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Product Reliability, Reliability in Emerging Technology Tagged With: contract, supplier reliability

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