Should We Ban the Term Failure?

Abstract

Chris and Fred discuss the term ‘failure’ … and should we use it?
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Wrapped Around the Axle

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Chris and Fred discuss what it means to be ‘wrapped around the axle.’ It is one of those perfect analogies … especially for people who fall for imperfect analogies! Like that assuming that all we have to do is wait for ‘early failures’ to disappear before we get into to the ‘bottom part of the bathtub curve’ … really?
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Military Customers, Center of Gravity, and Reliability

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Chris and Kirk discuss how militaries go about making and getting reliable stuff. And this is sometimes more successful than others …
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FMEAs and Percentage Reduction in Failures

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Chris and Carl ask each other … by how much do FMEAs improve reliability? … or reduce failure?
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A Better Way to do Design Reviews

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Chris and Fred ask each other ‘what makes a good design review?’ This is a great question. Reliability engineering can help! (… click here to read an article about this). If you want to learn more – listen to this podcast!
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Safety and Reliability

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Carl and Fred discussing the tools of safety and reliability engineering, and how these tools overlap.
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Safety – Binary or Variable

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Carl and Fred discuss the subject of safety. Specifically whether an item or device can be considered safe or not safe (binary), or whether there are degrees of safety (variable).
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Make or Check Reliability

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Chris and Fred discuss the difference between ‘making’ and ‘checking’ reliability. And there is a difference. This podcast follows on from Chris’s article about a US Department of Defense (DoD) quick reference guide on a ‘Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Body of Knowledge.’ The problem with this document was it was all about ‘checking’ reliability – and not enough ‘making’ reliability.
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Supply Chain Controls and Checks

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Kirk and Fred discussing how we can insure we receive outsourced parts meet our requirements when we may not know what variances in specifications will affect your particular system.
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Kitchen Appliance Failure

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Kirk and Fred discussing a recent failure of an electric range/oven and the troubleshooting, FA and repair. See the show notes to see photos and details of the failure analysis.
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Wright’s Law and Reliability

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Chris and Fred discuss this thing called ‘Wright’s Law’ which is a really fascinating way of describing how things improve as we create more of them. And why is this relevant for reliability engineering? Does ‘reliability growth’ ring a bell?
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Maintenance Culture Matters

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Chris and Fred discuss how important maintenance culture is – especially when it comes to safety-critical systems. Like ‘cable cars’ used to transport people up ski slopes. But unfortunately (like the recent accident that occurred in Italy that resulted in 14 deaths) toxic maintenance culture can lead to disastrous consequences. And this tends to happen across the world on a regular basis. Why does this happen?
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Interpreting Distribution Parameters

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Chris and Fred discuss what ‘distribution parameters’ mean when it comes to random processes. Specifically failure random processes. This is an interesting podcast in response to a question from one of our listeners – which are podcasts we love!
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Giving and Receiving Feedback

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Carl and Fred discussing the topic of giving and receiving feedback, and how it supports professional development.
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Keeping up with Reliability Tools

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Carl and Fred discussing a listener summitted question: When one’s job is focused on a single area of reliability, how does one keep up with advancements ones own area, as well as the entire field of reliability engineering? [Read more…]