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Apex Ridge

The Apex Ridge article series covers a diverse set of topics that relate to many of our reader’s work, interests, and experiences. The articles are inspired by industry experiences with the intent of sharing, educating and assisting you with your career challenges and growth. The content is targeted for a diverse audience with backgrounds even extending beyond engineering (Hmm talking to you project and business managers). My hope is that these topics inspire you to have discussions with your colleagues or right in the comments of the series. I look forward to seeing you on-line soon.

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Should They Have the Right?

Should They Have the Right?

There is an issue up for vote this year in my home state of Massachusetts. It’s called “Right to Repair.” The proposed law states that automotive manufacturers can not lock owners and independent repair shops out of vehicles on-board diagnostic computers. These are the arguments on either side of the issue:

Auto manufacturers don’t want independent repair shops completing work on their vehicles with technicians who are not factory trained. They are also concerned about repairs being completed with non-factory parts that could potentially be sub-standard. These manufacturers believe they should have control regarding repairs because they are held responsible when issues occur under warranty. So why is this an issue now?

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The midlife crisis use case

The midlife crisis use case

Sometimes we can only test one use case before we ship our product. So what should it be? Should it be the hardest use case? The nominal use case? The 95th percentile use case?

No! It should be the “midlife crisis use case.” What is it? I’ll show you.

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Omega watch Use Case

Omega watch Use Case

Well, it’s time for another exploration in Use Case 7. Unfamiliar with UC7? It’s simply when customers do unexpected things to our products. We often ignore it, but in fact, it is one of our best ways to learn about our product’s reliability. [Read more…]

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Disappointment

Disappointment

Disappointment, Loss, Anger, Frustration, Fear, Discouraged

This is a direct followup to my post last week.

I usually don’t do two part posts but….

I got some great responses to my post last week.  I then got this image from my buddies at NASA (on the ground, not on the space station). One is actually my roommate from college. His hair is much shorter now.

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Faith

Faith

Sometimes I see images that speak strongly to how reliability engineering affects us everyday.  Think of how many items you own or use systems that you wouldn’t touch/interact with if  you couldn’t be absolutely sure they would work as expected. I wouldn’t use my microwave if I thought there was a 1/1000 chance it would catch fire.  The amount of faith I have in traffic lights working correctly is astounding.  If they malfunction it could be fatal.

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How is it even possible after 41 years?

How is it even possible after 41 years?

The clock in my ’79 Porsche 911 works perfectly. I don’t remember the last time I set it.  Maybe I made a small adjustment six months ago, a year ago, don’t know?  A modern day quartz clock does this no problem, a mechanical spring clock might struggle in such a rough environment.  So was it quartz or mechanical? the ’70s was when quartz came on the scene, so either was a possibility. First I wanted to find out if it was ever replaced or serviced. So what did I do?  I contacted the previous two owners.  One purchased it new in ’79 and the other owned it for a five year period before I bought it. Neither recalls it ever being serviced or having a problem.

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I’ll Be Your Personal Test Chimp

I’ll Be Your Personal Test Chimp

I have a customer that has developed an impressive wrist worn biometric sensor for athletes. The system is worn on the athletes wrist, like many other personal devices. But this product is for serious athletes that aren’t just looking for non-descript data like step count and heart rate. What are you even supposed to do with that information?

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MTBF of a Human

MTBF of a Human

“What’s the MTBF of a Human?” That’s a bit of a strange question?

I ask this question in my Reliability 101 course. Why ask such a weird question? I’ll tell you why. Because MTBF is the worst, most confusing, crappy metric used in the reliability discipline. Ok maybe that is a smidge harsh, it does have good intentions. But the amount of damage that has been done by the misunderstanding it has caused is horrendous.

MTBF stands for “Mean Time Between Failure.” It is the inverse of failure rate. An MTBF of 100,000 hrs/failure is a failure rate of 1/100,000 fails/hr = .00001 fails/hr. Those are numbers, what does that look like in operation? [Read more…]

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Switzerland Style Attention

Switzerland Style Attention

I’m just back from a week long trip to Switzerland.  I was there developing a new Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) course for the “R is 4 Reliability” education series.  If you have ever been to Switzerland you found that there are several things that are striking about this place.  The natural beauty is unparalleled. Just about every view from every angle is of a beautiful snow capped mountain that has a lake or stream connected at its base. It’s never got old to look up and be viewing a real life postcard.

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Second Session of HALT Seminar

Second Session of HALT Seminar

Second Session!!!

“The Perfect Reliability Program Plan”

We held the New England HALT Seminar this past week.  It’s a little fun thing we like to put on every so often here in Boston. We do a few sessions where we talk about Reliability topics, we then play around with the HALT chambers and break a few things. It was great having sponsorship from Espec/Qualmark, and Air Liquide this year.  In past years it has just been me doing a few 30 minute sessions (one man show).  But this year we had four speakers and a diverse set of topics.  Definitely our best one yet.  This may grow to where we can’t do it at the lab any longer. Hopefully not, I don’t want to try and bring a HALT chamber to a conference center.

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New England HALT Seminar

New England HALT Seminar

We held the New England HALT Seminar this past week.  It’s a little fun thing we like to put on every so often here in Boston. We do a few sessions where we talk about Reliability topics, we then play around with the HALT chambers and break a few things. It was great having sponsorship from Espec/Qualmark, and Air Liquide this year.  In past years it has just been me doing a few 30 minute sessions (one man show).  But this year we had four speakers and a diverse set of topics.  Definitely our best one yet.  This may grow to where we can’t do it at the lab any longer. Hopefully not, I don’t want to try and bring a HALT chamber to a conference center.

[Read more…]

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Reliability of the Little Things, and a Good Fight

Reliability of the Little Things, and a Good Fight

My wife (Beth) and I both train and compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  It’s a grappling sport like wrestling.  In Jiu Jitsu your Gi (the karate looking uniform) is a big part of the sport.  It’s a very heavy fabric with very specific features that are inspected before each match.  Many moves involve the GI, especially the jacket. I have wrapped my sleeve around someones neck for a choke, You can grab the end of both of the opponents sleeves and dig your feed into their elbows to lock up their arms and throw them, you can use an opponent’s own lapel and wrap it around their neck for a submission or simply to roll them any way you wish.

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The Porsche Adventure Continues

The Porsche Adventure Continues

It’s been a few years since I have had a Porsche 911 in the stable. It seemed like the right time since were down to only two sports cars in addition to the daily drivers.  I think five cars is the bare minimum these days.  “It’s only a problem if you want to stop but can’t.”  I don’t want to.  There are some less free spirited individuals in the house who have expressed differing opinions.

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My Personal Indiana Jones

My Personal Indiana Jones

I was recently in New York City for work.  I stopped by to see a friend in the area.  He said “I have something interesting to show you.”  I was pretty excited because when Mark says “I have something interesting to show you.” you know it is going to be good.  He’s a writer and his passion is finding strange and interesting things.  My personal Indiana Jones.  Many days he wakes up and just gives himself some adventure assignment and the goes searching for it.

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Passion to Optimize

Passion to Optimize

If you recall I went on a slightly crazy adventure up to the edge of the article circle with my adventure buddy, my daughter Natalie, 11.  We almost froze to death on a mountain just to see the Northern Lights (story here).  But we also did something we both have always wanted to do and knew would be epic, a dog sled ride.  The first thing I have to say about it is holy crap those dogs are fast.  It felt like you could blow the doors off a snowmobile if you came across one.

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