Is it possible to foresee all reliability issues before a product launch?
No.
I don’t think so. Can we minimize surprises from field failures?
Yes.
The number of potential failures is often unknown.
Perfect Reliability
Why Wait for Field Returns?
In an ideal world, our products and equipment will just work. They would not fail and would not require warranty claims, product returns, or repair.
Unfortunately, we make design mistakes, assembly errors, incur damage, or simply fail. The desired balance for most businesses is the cost of returns will not outweigh the profit of sales.
It Should Just Work
The forums, chats, tweets (#bluelightofdeath), blogs, and mainstream media (CNN & Vancouver Sun) are looking closely at the launch of Sony’s Playstation. There are reports of dead on arrival and ‘blue light of death’ failures. One business blog discusses the need to understand and match customer expectations as a way to avoid bad press.
I find the expectation is pretty simple.
It should be simple
A brand new device, in this case, an expensive new game console, the entire experience of the purchase, transport, unpacking, hookup and first turn on should be a joy. The anticipation for those picking up the device on the first day comes crashing down to despair when the device fails to work. Products are expected to provide value, and you expect the device in front of you to work as expected. It’s simple.
I once explained to my son that not all units from production will work (he was in junior high school). He said he understood and that it is fine if the game console he buys just works. Ship the ones that don’t work to someone else. [Read more…]
Early Reliability Problems in the News
Working down product launch reliability problems
Boeing representatives explained the Dreamliner would need an additional 6 months of work to bring the aircraft’s reliability on par with the existing 777 model.
They made the announcement at the start of the Dubai air show. Not a good start to a week of showing off the features of the aircraft. How does a companay respond to early reliability problems in the news?
Generally, even the most general reliability goal of a new product is to be as good or better than the last model. Sure, the Dreamliner has many new features, materials, and upgrades. Yet, it did as much or more design evaluation and testing as any model previously. [Read more…]
No Feedback
Imagine you are requested to assist a design team in determining how to best improve the reliability of a product. You learn that the organization produces a range of point of sale (POS) devices and they have invited you to a meeting with their staff to discuss the product and ways to improve the field reliability.
To help understand the situation, you may have already started to think of a set of questions whose answers would lead to suitable recommendations: [Read more…]
Product Reliability Participants part 6
In this installment of the series dealing with the myriad participants within an organization, we’ll start with failure analysis specialists, before moving to marketing and sales, and finally getting to the finance team. We’re moving away from the positions where the focus on reliability is central, but there are important considerations in relation to product reliability for each of these roles still. The next post in this series will be the final one. [Read more…]
Product Reliability Participants part 5
Continuing the series where we examine various roles within an organization and the ways in which each role interacts and affects product reliability, this post will start off with procurement engineers and managers. Since each role hereafter is a bit less involved, multiple roles will be grouped together. After procurement, we’ll take a look at warranty managers. [Read more…]
Product Reliability Participants part 4
The last post moved into the role of quality and reliability engineers, and the influence that leadership in design and product development has on the product reliability process. Similarly, this post will move to Q & R managers, again looking at the role of that position in relation to product reliability.
