Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics

Short essays and thoughts (musings) on reliability and maintenance engineering topics.

Let me know your reaction and thought, plus any questions.
ISSN 2329-0080

Quality & Reliability: Similarities and Differences

I like to say Reliability is all of quality over time. Quality professional tend to say reliability is an element of quality. David A. Garvin of the Harvard Business School suggests there are eight dimensions to quality, including reliability.

Either way one relates quality and reliability we need to remember that quality or reliability is not a department, team, the engineering down the hall. Quality and reliability is part of the culture of the organization. It is how we make decisions the impact how the product or service performs for customers. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Reliability and Availability Modeling in Practice

By Kishor S. Trivedi

Kishor forward the link to the recording to me and suggest it may of interest to the Accendo Reliability community. I agree. He does a great job discussing the topic and a clear and practical manner.

The video abstract is:

IEEE Life Fellow and Hudson Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University Prof. Kishor S. Trivedi visited Alibaba’s Hangzhou campus on Dec. 8th and talked about technical systems’ reliability and availability assurance methods based on probabilistic models. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

The Changing Support for a Reliability Engineer

In most organizations being a reliability engineer is a lonely position. I like to think we’re so effective that one or just a small team is all any organization needs.

As with any engineering position, we have specialized training and skills. We view the world and problems just a little differently then others. Then we use statistics, which tends to future isolate us from our peers.

For over 50 years there have been professional societies focused on supporting the professional education of reliability engineers. For nearly as long there have been trade journals and newsletters. Longer for technical journals and other scientific and engineering organizations and journals. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Value of Making Better Decisions

We make decisions every day. Our project teams and organizations have many individuals making decisions every day. Most of these decisions have little to do with product reliability, yet a surprising number of design, marketing, production, and customer care decisions that have a direct impact on product reliability performance.

As a reliability professional, do you work to make better decisions? Do you work to enable the individuals designing, producing, marketing, etc your organization’s products to make better decisions concerning reliability?

If not, why?

Let’s outline a few ways to estimate the value to you and your organization to improve decision making concerning reliability. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Should I Become a CRL, CMRP, or CRE?

What is the Career Benefit of Becoming a CRL, CMRP, or CRE?

Education. Knowledge. Motivation.

Sitting for a professional society’s reliability certification is a common goal among engineers in our field. Is there a career benefit? I’m not sure the certification provides the benefit. I think it is the work toward certification and the application of the required knowledge that provides the benefit.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Delivering The Bad News, Safely

Reliability engineering includes delivering bad news. This piece of equipment will fail soon, this design won’t survive outdoor use.

We start early with engineering judgment on design weaknesses. Continue by organizing groups to evaluate and comment on what will likely fail. We test, prod, poke and force failures to occur. Then we tally the actual performance and compare that to the what we hoped.

We are the bearers of bad news all too often.

So how do you avoid the stigma attached to that bad news? [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Reliability Engineering is About Answering 3 Questions

Reliability Engineering is About Answering Questions

Engineers solve problems. We optimize solutions.

Engineering starts with a question. The work of engineering is answering those questions. Can we create an antenna with enough range? How can we make a safe autonomous driving car? How much can a delivery drone carry if it has a range of 100 miles?

Reliability engineers are no different. We ask questions and work to answer them. To solve the problems in the pursuit of providing our customers reliable solutions.

In general, there are only a few types of questions a reliability engineer addresses: What will fail, when, and what is the impact of a failure.

The answers are used to design reliable products, optimize supply chains and assembly processes, refine warranty accruals, and identify significant business risks. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

11 Motivations to Learn Reliability Engineering

There are many reasons or motivations to learn. From our boss asking us to solve a problem in an unfamiliar field of science, to simple curiosity.

When faced with an unusual failure mode, we need to learn what is causing the failure in order to solve the problem. When exploring a new material, we want to learn how it will fail in our design.

As reliability professionals, we are professional learners or should be.

Let’s take a look at a list of motivations that you may experience that prompt you to learn. When you review the past month or year, you will notice how much you learned.

When you feel one of these motivations, go with it. Learn, grow, and improve your capability as a reliability professional. Furthermore, you can foster these motivations with your team and colleagues, as well. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Reliability Engineering and Leadership

Leadership is a difficult term to clearly define. A team leader may have poor or wonderful leadership skills. A product may lead in a market with a broad feature offering, yet not hold a recognized leadership position.

As a reliability engineer, you will find many opportunities to lead. Your ability to provide vision, direction, guidance, and support for a team enables you to affect change and accomplish goals. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Receiving Feedback Well

Not all of us are fortunate enough to receive great feedback. We all do receive feedback, and some receive very little actionable feedback.

If you offer proposals, give presentations, make requests, or even just ask for a favor, you will receive some form of response. It often is just an answer to the call to action, and nothing more.

At some point, you may be ‘pulled aside’ so someone can provide you feedback on your behavior, your delivery, your ability or skill. It is this type of feedback that is essential to your improvement. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

To Improve Reliability Get Good at Change Management

To Improve Reliability You Need to Cause Change

The process to design and deliver a reliable product involves identifying risks. Taking action to understand or mitigate those risks involves much of the day to day work of reliability engineering.

Taking action to set expectations and improve decisions involves change. Change of understanding, change of specifications, change of expectations, change of designs, processes, and results.

It is the changes, big and small, that occur that achieve the desired results for the customer and organization.

You also know that not every suggestion is greeted warmly. Not every proposal is funded. Not every recommendation is accepted. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Facilitation Skills for Reliability Engineers

We facilitate. As reliability professionals, we often lead teams to identify risk. We help cross-functional teams find and implement solutions. We bring people together and ease their ability to communicate clearly with each other.

Whether a leader or participant we have a role to achieve the desired goals. Our ability to facilitate enables us to work with others to get things done. Understanding how to facilitate well permits us to add value when leading or participating on a team. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The 7 Essential Elements of a Complete Request

Not every request we make is fulfilled. Not every assignment is accomplished. Not very task we assign if completed.

Why is that? Possibly, the lack of a complete request.

It may be the person we made the request to was incapable or decided to ignore us. Or, more likely, it may be our request was not clear.

An unclear request increases the chance the desired outcome will not occur. An unclear request permits misunderstanding and confusion to guide the path toward an unsatisfactory result.

Understanding the essential elements of making a complete request improves the chance the desired outcome will occur.

Let’s examine the 7 elements one at a time. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Discussion skills

Discussion Skills for a Reliability Engineer

Talking is not the same as a discussion or conversation. Talking is one direction only. If two people are talking, they are talking at each other.

A discussion is two way. When two people have a discussion information passes both ways, both speak, both listen.

As an engineer, there is plenty to discuss. We work with others to find solutions, make compromises, determine optimizations, and finish projects. We need to share our knowledge and insights, as well as learn from others.

You can learn to foster true discussions and minimize simply talking at one another. You can take steps to enable the give and take exchange of a discussion. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Listening Skills for Reliability Engineers

Listening Skills to Improve Your Ability to Communicate with Influence

Did you hear what they said? Or, were you busy loading for your next verbal barrage?

As my mother would remind me, one should listen twice of often as speaking. Something about the ratio of ears to mouths in the population. I have to agree with her, that one can learn a lot by listening.

Listening may not seem to be a skill that one needs to master. Yet, how often have you walked away from a meeting where one or more participants obviously were not listening? How often are points repeated in an effort to be heard?

Being able to listen, listen well, can be honed and improved. A focus on being a better listener will improve your ability to communicate and influence as a reliability engineer. It has benefits beyond our reliability work, too. [Read more…]