Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Chris and Fred discuss the challenge of being asked by someone to show (or visualize) stunning, eye-popping results for some reliability activity. How do we do this? Is this possible?
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Kirk and Fred discuss the advice we would give a engineer just starting a career in Reliability Engineering
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Ever find yourself stuck trying to gauge the likelihood of an event?
What if you could transform your approach to probability assignments with just one simple trick?
On this episode of Quality During Design, we talk about simplifying probabilities for better decision making. We uncover a method to assign probabilities and occurrence ratings during preliminary assessments.
We share a technique that involves breaking down an event into smaller, more manageable parts, helping you understand and analyze it better. This method makes it easier to assign likelihoods because it provides better understanding of the event, clearer context, and consideration of what may drive things to happen.
Then, we relate these parts to conditional probabilities. We offer example explanations and practical applications to help you grasp conditional probabilities.
Plus, for those looking for additional resources, we have a cheat sheet that can further simplify these concepts for you. Not a subscriber yet? Visit qualityduringdesign.com to sign up and start receiving valuable insights directly in your inbox.
Join us to learn how these techniques can simplify probabilities, improve your assessments, and boost your team’s decision-making.
In this episode, I speak with Philip Sage. Today, we’re diving into the murky waters of Mean Time Between Failures, or as some of us like to call it, ‘Maybe This’ll Be Fine’. We’ll uncover why relying on MTBF can sometimes be as risky as trusting your umbrella on a windy day. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with some solid alternatives that won’t leave you high and dry!
Let’s make a comparison. Let’s check our product’s key characteristics against specifications, compare vendor life data, or compare the newest design changes to prior performance. We can and should do comparisons well using the appropriate statistical approach.
Let’s examine a handful of parametric and non-parametric comparison tools, including various hypothesis tests. Plus how to best use these tools and when to set them aside and explore another approach.
The challenging world of electronics becomes even more challenging when the end product is destined for harsh environments. For high reliability products operating in a harsh environment, the quest for reliability is not just a goal—it’s an imperative. These are not your everyday gadgets; often they’re critical components of systems designed to operate under extreme conditions, where failure is not an option. From the scorching heat of desert landscapes to the unyielding cold of arctic tundras, from the high-pressure depths of our oceans to the radiation-filled expanse of space, the demands on these electronic products are as varied as the environments themselves.
While ocean depths, outer space, and frozen tundras are arguably harsh environments, we don’t have to look too far for examples of product failures in less harsh environments. One example that comes to mind is the state of public EV charging stations. Government reports have concluded that up to 25% of public EV chargers are at any given time.
While there are many reasons for this, one may conclude they are not designed and manufactured for the intended in climactic operating environment.
On this episode, we’ll uncover the numerous challenges that designers and engineers face in their quest for reliability, durability, and functionality of the final product.
As we navigate through this complex landscape, we’ll highlight the strategies that enable these products to not just survive, but excel in unforgiving conditions.
Kirk and Fred discuss reliability allocations for individual components and subsystems.
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Chris and Fred discuss how short, 1-minute explainer videos could help reliability engineers … especially new ones!
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Chris and Fred discuss what Failure Reporting and Corrective Action Systems (FRACAS) and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CSSM) are … and what they are not … and how they relate.
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Carl and Fred discuss why understanding the “mode” of failure is essential in Failure Mode and Effects Analysis.
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Are you harnessing the power of collaboration in your professional life? What could Shuji Nakamura, the Nobel Prize-winning engineer behind the blue LED, teach you about teamwork and career growth? Discover how transitioning from an independent researcher to a collaborative leader can elevate your professional journey.
Join me, Dianna Deeney, as I share insights from a recent event co-hosted for the IEEE Philadelphia Professional Communication Society. We’ll uncover valuable lessons from the books “Brilliant!” by Bob Johnstone and Dale Carnegie’s classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” both of which spotlight the transformative power of teamwork and communication.
Learn about Shuji Nakamura’s career evolution and find out how his story parallels many of our own professional paths. I’ll also dive into my personal shift from solitary work to embracing collaboration in quality engineering. By leveraging quality tools for better communication and idea sharing within cross-functional teams, you too can drive more successful engineering and design projects. This episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiring anecdotes to help you thrive in your professional life.
Don’t miss out on knowing THE baseline approach that can lead to collaboration success!
Many engineers rush to design or build something that we think is ‘awesome’ or at least ‘proves a concept.’ But this often means we build something that we like (not necessarily what our users like) or doesn’t work (because we didn’t realize that have sensitive electronic components near hot exhaust manifolds would be a problem). This is where taking a breath and understanding our product before we build the wrong thing fast can really helpful. A FMEA or functional block diagram can really help us visualize what different parts of our system do, and how they interact. They also help us identify the basic, interface and additional functions that separate an ‘average’ product from an ‘industry leading’ product. If this is something you think you or your team can benefit from, join us for this webinar.
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We’re the best, we’re number one, we’re better than them, we’ve won more awards than our competitors, we’ve all seen those ads. While this form of advertising isn’t unique, when’s the last time it caused you to buy a product based on the ad. I think we all know that answer.
There was a time when we relied heavily on print advertising to determine what products were available and from whom. The two primary methods to gain product awareness were print advertising and trade shows. While advertising and trade shows still exist, they are no longer the primary method of product awareness.
31 years ago, beginning on April 30, 1993, all of that began to change. What happened on April 30, 1993? Public access to the Internet was born.
Over the past 31 years, Internet technology propelled us into an age of self discovery. The older generation accuses the younger generation of always having their face in a screen. While that may be true, it’s not always TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat. People today, particularly younger people, research products, technologies, and a host of other things online. Consumers today are far more educated on the products they wish to purchase them at any time in history.
In what I find to be an exceptional irony, much of the industry responsible for building the technology behind Internet connectivity continues to advertise their products in a pre-Internet style.
You may ask, what does this have to do with reliability? Building reliable products requires a net sum of a vast amount of best practices. One of those practices is insuring the right products, procedures, specifications, designs, and so many other factors are implemented.
This goal cannot be accomplished by just reading advertisements from sellers. Frequently, engineers struggle to solve problems without a complete knowledge of the root cause of the problem. Particularly today, with so many in-house subject matter experts retiring, advertisements boasting the number of customers, time and business, and where they place in the hierarchy of competitive products do not assist the engineer and understanding the root cause of a potential problem, and certainly not the solution.
Over the past several years, several companies in our industry have begun to change their advertising strategies from transactional, to transformational. That is to say they help to connect problems to solutions, more than merely hyping products.
My guest today fully understands the value and effectiveness of what I like to call “Conscious Marketing “.
Carl and Fred discuss some of the most common reliability mistakes they have seen in their careers, both ones they have personally made or viewed.
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