Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
The reliability performance of a product or system exists because the decisions that occur during the creation of the product establish how well an item will survive without failure. The choice of material, finish, or technologies, along with all the other decisions involved, define how well a product performs, including its reliability. [Read more…]
Like most manufacturers, the electronic manufacturing industry relies on countless suppliers to fulfill its manufacturing needs. I’m quite certain there is no one within the EMS space who fabricates their own boards using materials produced in house, operates their own semiconductor foundries, designs and manufacturers their own components, and produces soldering materials for their reflow process. Our industry relies on a vast network of manufacturers throughout the world to build even the simplest electronic assembly.
Intellectual property security, cyber security, national security, are all hot topics today. No one wants their hard-earned intellectual property stolen. This is most true within The US military establishment. There are, at present, numerous policies, procedures, and regulations designed to protect various parts of our supply chain from unscrupulous people and companies.
Today, companies are concerned about “controlled unclassified information” (CUI) and “controlled technical information” (CTI). That brings us to IPC-1791. What is IPC-1791? My guest today, IPC’s Randy Cherry will explain.
Randy is Director of Validation Services at IPC. Validation Services is a series of certification programs that qualify products and processes to the IPC industry standards.
Once companies have completed their certification they are listed as an IPC Trusted Supplier on the IPC Validation Services website.
Randy has over 30 years experience in Engineering with Printed Circuit Board and Backplane fabs, High-Speed Pressfit Backplane Connectors, and SMT (Surface Mount Technology) Assembly practices. He is a certified SMT Process Engineer and an IPC Auditor, and, he’s my guest today on this episode.
Randy’s Contact Info:
Randy Cherry | Director, Validation Services
IPC
3000 Lakeside Drive, Suite 105 N,
Bannockburn, IL 60015
Office: +1 847-597-2806
Mobile: +1 630-470-4721
randycherry@ipc.org
www.ipc.org
www.ipc.org/validation
Chris and Fred discuss the difference between ‘confidence,’ ‘tolerance’ and ‘prediction’ intervals. Is there any point in understanding the difference between these concepts? … or is it something only statisticians find useful?
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Kirk and Fred discussing Multiple Environmental Over Stress Test or MEOST.
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Relationships matter! And they can be difficult to understand.
We’re taking relationships between variables. Does one variable affect another? Or do they just correlate? Understanding which matters to the values of our decisions.
We talk about the saying “Correlation does not imply causation”, how to find a confounding variable, and ways to check that we’ve got the triggering cause that’s going to affect our outcome.
Kirk and Fred discussing and reflecting on some of the spooky reliability problems we have seen (or not seen) that sometimes have haunted us on this Halloween 2022 episode of SOR
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Meetings to ADD productivity to our day? Yes!
We need our time to be productive, individually.
We also need input from our team. We can use meetings to add productivity to our day, if done right.
We break it down: hours in a day, limits of humans, and the minimum requirements of a good meeting.
Whether new to reliability or a veteran, you have probably heard about the Weibull distribution. It has almost mythical status amongst those who conduct reliability data analysis … or in other words – turning a jumble of dots (data points) into information that actually means something. So why do we ‘worship’ the Weibull distribution? What is so special about it? Whether you have been doing this for a long time or five minutes, you will get something out of this webinar that looks at one of the most popular tools for reliability analysis.
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It’s been said, on this show, that one key factor to international competitiveness is automation. While labor rates vary widely across the world, automation helps to level the field.
My guest today is Michael McHale, CEO of Production Systems Automation, otherwise known as PSA. Michael graduated from Drexel University with a BS degree in mechanical engineering.
Just to put our upcoming conversation into context, it’s helpful to know that PSA is a privately owned engineering and custom manufacturing firm founded in 1985, with three locations in Pennsylvania. They are experienced as a turnkey systems integrator, providing solutions for capital projects including, but not limited to; flexible robotic solutions, custom automated machinery, drives and controls & custom PLC projects. They also offer a line of standard products developed for industry specific customers.
They are a robotic systems integrator at heart, representing leading global robotic OEM’s. I say all this not to endorse or promote a particular company but rather put my guest’s comments into context. I am pleased to welcome Michael McHale to our show.
Michael’s Contact Info:
Michael McHale
mmchale@psasystems.com
https://www.psasystems.com/
Greg and Fred discussing the importance of decision making in quality, reliability, and work in general.
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Chris and Fred discuss the pointlessness of the MTBF. This comes from a listener who reached out to complain about how lots of industries enforce the MTBF … but why?
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Over the past several years, decades even, we have seen countless exciting advancements in technology across asset-intensive industries. While exciting, these changes have raised questions about how the future will look for maintenance, operations, and reliability teams within these industries. Will we see even bigger sweeps of innovation? Will the jobs of manufacturing professionals change? On this week’s episode of Maintenance Mavericks, UpKeep Founder and CEO Ryan Chan is joined by Sunny Han, Founder and CEO of Fulcrum, to discuss what the next 5 to 30 years might look like for our industries. Tune in and listen today!
We have test results but realize that testing didn’t go as planned.
What can we do to help prevent this scenario?
We talk about ways to partner with test engineers and test technicians and the importance of still maintaining their independence.
