An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

Reliability engineers are often taught about ‘cut sets.’ But we rarely use them. Many reliability engineers don’t know what they are. But they are also in lots of textbooks as if they are really important. So what are they? The good news is that they are pretty simple to understand. The bad news is that they can be difficult to find. Mercifully, they are mainly used by computers who do the hard work of calculating system reliability for us. So knowing what ‘cut sets’ are can be really informative … even if you don’t use them every day.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

We often use the term ‘system reliability modelling’ to describe any scenario where we need to somehow convert what we know about component reliability into system reliability in order to make a decision. Some of us might have heard of ‘series systems’ that have no redundant components, meaning that the system fails when any component fails. Then there are ‘parallel systems’ where the system fails when the last component fails. But then there are ‘K out of N’ systems that need ‘K’ components out of a total of ‘N’ components to work for the system to work. Do you know when ‘K out of N’ system reliability looks like series system reliability? … or parallel system reliability? … or perhaps you don’t know what series or parallel system reliability looks like? Then this webinar is for you.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

Redundancy has continually proven not always to be redundant. Whether the Fukushima nuclear power plant or United Airlines Flight 232, additional components or subsystems that are supposed to take over when others have failed don’t always work. Why is that? There are quite a few reasons … many of which we already know about. But time and time again, otherwise, smart people choose to ignore what we know about how to REALLY make things redundant in order to save costs, save thinking, or otherwise confuse efforts with outcomes. In this webinar, we will look at how redundancy is described in textbooks … and how it can go wrong in the real world.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

If you have spent any time doing reliability engineering stuff, you will probably have heard of this thing called a ‘fault tree.’ You may have even used fault trees a lot. But it is amazing how many different reliability engineers have different ideas about how to use a fault tree best. Some think fault trees are strictly used to work out which combinations of components need to fail for the system to fail (system reliability modeling). Others think fault trees are really useful for helping us work out what the causes of failure are (root cause analysis). Both people are right. So why do we get these competing schools of thought? Join us for this webinar to learn more about how fault trees can help you … regardless of what you are trying to achieve.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

OK … that is a little macabre. However, reliability engineers need to ask themselves this question a lot. And there are a lot of wrong answers out there. Some textbooks say that it is ‘commonly accepted’ to use this thing called the exponential distribution. Other books say that if the ‘Weibull shape parameter is 6 or greater … redesign!’ Do you have any idea what this means? If not, this webinar will be a nice little introduction for you!

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

Having a reliability target for your product is excellent. But how does that help all the little design teams, who make their own decisions on all the different parts of your system?

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

The survival of an individual item is difficult to determine. Use and environmental conditions, along with material and assembly differences, count. Let’s explore how to model and use the naturally occurring variability to improve reliability performance.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

A good physics of failure (PoF) model helps you understand the impact of stresses on the time-to-failure distribution for a specific failure mechanism. Let’s discuss PoF models, including how to create and use them effectively.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

A reasonable model helps you make informed decisions. A simple reliability block diagram often provides the insights your team needs to prioritize and achieve the desired reliability performance. Let’s create, populate, and use RBDs effectively.

RBDs comprise a few simple elements and arrangements yet can describe a wide range of products and systems. There are a few assumptions to remember and a few basic ways to create a useful model for your system.

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An Accendo Reliability recorded webinar event

Your team may understand the system reliability goal, yet they should know the goal for the element they are addressing. Let’s discuss why you must do reliability apportionment. Plus, let’s explore how it benefits your team.

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