Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
  • Reliability.fm
    • Speaking Of Reliability
    • Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast
    • Quality during Design
    • Critical Talks
    • Dare to Know
    • Maintenance Disrupted
    • Metal Conversations
    • The Leadership Connection
    • Practical Reliability Podcast
    • Reliability Matters
    • Reliability it Matters
    • Maintenance Mavericks Podcast
    • Women in Maintenance
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
    • Asset Reliability @ Work
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Aasan Asset 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
      • ReliabilityXperience
      • RCM Blitz®
      • Rob’s Reliability Project
      • The Intelligent Transformer Blog
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Metals Engineering and Product Reliability
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Product Validation
      • Reliability Engineering Insights
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
      • Equipment Risk and Reliability in Downhole Applications
      • Operational Risk Process Safety
    • on Systems Thinking
      • Communicating with FINESSE
      • The RCA
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability
      • Inside and Beyond HALT
      • Inside FMEA
      • Integral Concepts
      • Learning from Failures
      • Progress in Field Reliability?
      • Reliability Engineering Using Python
      • Reliability Reflections
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • The Manufacturing Academy
  • eBooks
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Openings
    • Books
    • Webinars
    • Journals
    • Higher Education
    • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge
    • Reliability Analysis Methods online course
    • Measurement System Assessment
    • SPC-Process Capability Course
    • Design of Experiments
    • Foundations of RCM online course
    • Quality during Design Journey
    • Reliability Engineering Statistics
    • Quality Engineering Statistics
    • An Introduction to Reliability Engineering
    • An Introduction to Quality Engineering
    • Process Capability Analysis course
    • Root Cause Analysis and the 8D Corrective Action Process course
    • Return on Investment online course
    • CRE Preparation Online Course
    • Quondam Courses
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Live Events
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home

The Manufacturing Academy Article Series

This article series by Ray Harkins explores the tools essential for quality or reliability engineers and managers. Topics include statistical process control, reliability engineering, root cause analysis, and business finance.

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What is the Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

What is the Difference Between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

One of the most commonly asked questions about quality engineering is “What is the difference between quality assurance and quality control?”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Where Did All These Reliability Life Models Come From?

Where Did All These Reliability Life Models Come From?

Among students beginning their examination of reliability engineering, one question pops up repeatedly: Where did all these reliability life models come from? On one hand, reliability engineering is deeply entrenched in statistical models … Weibull, exponential, etc. But these models alone, do not fully explain the product life models. There is still a missing piece: the Physics of Failure (PoF).

PoF and reliability models are closely connected concepts, as they both relate to the ability of products, processes, and systems to perform their intended function consistently over time. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

Deriving the Role of the Reliability Manager

Having worked in manufacturing quality for the great majority of my career, with a few tentacles into the field of reliability, I’ve considered many comparisons between the two fields, with of course, my unconscious biases favoring quality. One interesting comparison, for instance, is between job postings for similar positions in these related fields.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

How Do the Goals of Reliability and Quality Engineers Align?

How Do the Goals of Reliability and Quality Engineers Align?

Reliability engineers and quality engineers both work to ensure that products and systems are functioning effectively and efficiently. However, they have slightly different focus areas and goals.

The primary focus of reliability engineering is designing systems that are dependable and able to function consistently over time. This may involve identifying and addressing potential sources of failure, implementing preventive maintenance protocols, and conducting testing to ensure that the system is functioning as intended. The ultimate goal of reliability engineering is to minimize downtime and ensure that the system is available for use when needed.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What is Six Sigma and How is it Used in Quality Engineering?

What is Six Sigma and How is it Used in Quality Engineering?

Another of the most commonly asked questions about quality engineering is “What is Six Sigma and how is it used in quality engineering?”

Six Sigma is a data-driven approach to continuous improvement that aims to reduce defects and variability in products, processes, and systems. It is based on the idea that by identifying and addressing the root causes of defects and variability, organizations can significantly improve the quality of their products and processes. Six Sigma is used to identify and eliminate defects and variability by collecting and analyzing data, identifying patterns and trends, and implementing process improvements.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What Reliability Engineers Can Learn from Quality

What Reliability Engineers Can Learn from Quality

a.k.a. “the dark side”

Reliability engineering and quality engineering are closely related disciplines that both focus on ensuring that products, processes, and systems are efficient, effective, and meet the required standards. As such, there are several ways in which reliability engineers can improve their skills by learning about quality engineering.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Understanding First Article Inspection

Understanding First Article Inspection

For the seasoned manufacturing quality professional, First Article Inspection (FAI) is a familiar process performed after the first production run of a new or redesigned part. But for those outside of or newer to the quality profession, the requirements of FAI may provoke a lot of questions and uncertainty.

In short, FAI is the process of planning, conducting and reporting the verification of a production process. This verification “closes the loop” between the customer’s expectations — usually described on the part’s engineering drawing — and the actual output of the supplier’s process.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Understanding Job Satisfaction with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Understanding Job Satisfaction with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In a season 2 episode of AMC’s acclaimed TV show “Better Call Saul”, its lead character Jimmy McGill asks his assistant Omar to “take a letter” as he dictates a handful of disjointed phrases to tender his resignation from his lucrative position at the Davis & Main law firm1. During a pause between Jimmy’s thoughts, Omar blankly states, “I just didn’t realize how unhappy you were here.” Jimmy’s response, while puzzling and a bit comical, describes a concept key to understanding the nature of job satisfaction. He replies to Omar, “Not unhappy, per se. More like not happy.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

The Window and the Mirror; A Framework for Building Credibility

The vast majority of professionals will never rise to the heights of leading a major corporation. But because of the public nature of executives and the companies they oversee, business leaders and their management methods often form effective case studies for those who manage smaller projects and organizations.

Over time, professionals who make a habit of reading trade journals and analyzing business reports can begin spotting both the useful and the futile patterns among these executives’ leadership styles. One such pattern, coined by the bestselling author of “Good to Great” Jim Collins, is called “The Window and the Mirror”.1

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

To Change is to Change Twice

To Change is to Change Twice

As a teenager in the 1980s, I was an avid reader of Omni, a now defunct magazine dedicated to the future—a far-off world filled with super humans, artificial biospheres and frequent encounters with extraterrestrial beings. Omni catered to armchair futurists like me with science and science fiction stories by A-level writers like Bernard Dixon and William Burroughs.

Future-oriented mass media such as Omni and “Star Wars” gives its consumers a plausible vision of everyday life for future generations. What these sources don’t typically deliver, though, is the path of change to get there. 

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

The Cost of Opportunity

The Cost of Opportunity

Everyone working in a decision-making role has at least an intuitive understanding of the concept of opportunity costs-the value of the thing you didn’t choose. Simply stated, when you say ‘Yes’ to one thing, you simultaneously say ‘No’ to everything else you could have chosen instead. And those things to which you say ‘No’ have a value that you’re relinquishing. When I was a teenager, I heard an older gentleman quip, “When I said ‘I do’ to my wife, I was also saying ‘I don’t’ to all the other girls out there”. That man understood opportunity cost.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Expanding your Opportunities

Expanding your Opportunities

As the quality manger for a tier two automotive supplier, I recently had the opportunity to hire a quality supervisor following the retirement of a long-time member of our team. Our company’s human resource manager and I worked together through the entire selection process. Given the status of our region’s economy and the recent closure of several large factories, I wasn’t surprised when our mailbox started filling up with resumes in response to ads on the popular Internet job sites. The typical respondent was a mid-career professional with over 15 years of experience in manufacturing that had either been recently laid-off due or who wanted to move up in their career.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

Sharpening the Axe – Developing a Process Inspection Plan

Sharpening the Axe – Developing a Process Inspection Plan

Abraham Lincoln taught the value of adequate preparation when he said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” By training, quality professionals are often focused on verifying the correctness of a product. A traditional inspector at the Lincoln Timber Company might have dutifully marked in her audit log the date and time, the type and size of tree, followed by the comment, “Cut down.”

But Honest Abe would have advised her to take a closer look at the tools and process used to complete the job.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What is Design Thinking?

What is Design Thinking?

With all the buzz these days about design thinking, some of you may be wondering what it’s all about. How does it relate to design? And what can non-designers gain from it?

Design thinking is far more than simply designing products and services—it’s an approach to problem-solving that can be applied to an incredibly wide range of applications.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

by Ray Harkins Leave a Comment

What is Probability?

What is Probability?

with co-author Mark Fiedeldey

The definition of the term “reliability” begins by specifying that reliability is a probability.  Therefore, the concept of a probability, while sometimes intimidating to reliability practitioners, is fundamentally important.

Probability can be defined as the extent to which an event is likely to occur. Just as an average is a measure of central tendency, probability is a measure of uncertainty in a particular event or outcome. That’s all … Nothing intimidating here.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, on Tools & Techniques, The Manufacturing Academy

Next Page »
Logo for The Manufacturing Acadamey headshot of RayArticle by Ray Harkins
in the The Manufacturing Academy article series

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

Recent Posts

  • Risk And Safety
  • Risk Prioritization in FMEA – a Summary
  • What Are Best Practices for Facilitating Qualitative Assessments?
  • So, What’s Still Wrong with Maintenance
  • Foundation of Great Project Outcomes – Structures

© 2023 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Cookies Policy

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.