Create a Meaningful Environmental Test Plan

We often want to know if our product will work as expected in our customer’s environment.

Creating an environmental test plan that clearly shows weaknesses and strengths should be part of your program for each product.

Let’s explore the steps and resources you should consider when creating an environmental test plan for each product.

We will discuss why using standards or even the plan from the last program may not provide you meaningful information.

Understanding how your product responds to your customer’s environment provides the information for your team to make improvements and improve product reliability.
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Break the “we’ve always done it this way” cycle

Reliability and test planning takes time and it’s easy to use the plan worked out for the last program.

Yet this doesn’t consider the new risks or technology or use conditions that impact product reliability.

If you find resistance as you propose improvements to the reliability plan or to the test plan, what can you do to gain acceptance?

If the source of resistance that what we did last time worked, why change, then what steps can you take to secure support for the needed changes?
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Building a Reliability Plan

Each product development project is different.

Different features, customers, use cases, and expectations. Let’s discuss how to build a custom reliability program that fits your specific situation.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

– attributed to Albert Einstein, basically describes many organizations’ reliability project plans.

The idea that a set of activities will effectively address all of the reliability risks of a new design is too common across industries.

Why is this?

Let’s explore recognizing the current situation and which activities provide the most value.

The focus should be on creating a product that meets customer and business expectations with the lowest risk and cost.
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Establishing Reliability Goals

The way we communicate goals directly impacts the achievement of the goal. Creating and succinctly stating a reliability goal necessary for the leadership it provides an organization when designing a new product. The reliability goal statement includes four elements:

• function
• environment
• probability of success
• duration.

The function definition provides one means to define failure conditions. The environment includes elements such as weather and elements related to use frequency. ᐅ Play Episode

Introduction to
Reliability Engineering Management

This discussion draws on over 150 reliability program assessments. Let’s discuss the findings, key lessons, and best practices.

Let’s start the discussion on how to think about improving your reliability programs both at the specific project and across the organization.

Thinking about the value of each task and how it will benefit achieving personal, business, and customer objectives are key.
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Successful Career in Reliability Engineering

How does one become a reliability engineer?

How does one create a career based on reliability engineering?

In my experience, I have seen several paths and have observed a number of key traits that make for a successful career.

This discussion examines the traits of successful reliability professionals from different industries.

The combination of those profiles and my experience with coaching dozens as they built their careers has provided a unique insight into the key traits that separate a rewarding from an unfulfilling career in reliability engineering.
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SPC Sample Size Impact on SPC

Presented by Steven Wachs

The purpose of control charting is to detect significant process changes when they occur.

One important consideration in the selection and design of control charts (that is often overlooked) is the determination of an appropriate sample size.
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Finding Value with Reliability Tasks

Let’s explore finding the value of reliability tasks and how to articulate the importance of those activities in business terms.

Estimating the return on investment for risk assessment or accelerated testing can help you justify the investment in these and similar tools.

This webinar discusses the importance of estimated value and helps you discover and state the value of common activities.

Put a number on the value of tasks that you bring to the organization with your work.

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