Fundamentals of Reliability Related Standards

By Fred Schenkelberg

December 11, 2018 / 9am Pacific Time

Standards provide guidance, a common language, and a bit of confusion. Using the right standard and using it well can help your reliability program. Using standards poorly will harm your ability to create reliable products.

Let’s consider the good, the bad, and the total fails of industry standards. There are some that provide useful information. While a few common ones should be avoided. There is a wide range of sources of standards for different industries and applications. Some standards provide detailed procedures, while others outline approaches. In general, standards provide a common way for organizations to talk to each and conduct business.

Many standards do not provide background or boundaries on under what circumstances the standard applies. This leads to the misapplication of standards and misleading results. Some standards provide little more than that found in an engineering or statistical textbook, at much more cost. Yet others provide details not found elsewhere.

Let’s discuss standards, including where to find them, how to use them, and a few stories about how standards use leads to reliability problems.

System Reliability

By Dr James Neale – University of Waikato

December 12, 2018 / 8am Pacific Time

$50

A Reliable Process Solutions 1-hour webinar event focused on providing you practical content to improve your reliability program today.

This webinar will include presentation and discussion on:

• Systems, Heat Exchanger, Evaporators, Filters
• Why we must not forget the system when building reliability processes
• How do we effectively maintain these systems?

Sign up is direct with Reliable Process Solutions. After payment they will forward the link for the GotoWebinar event or provided access to the recording. There are also options to buy bundles of webinars (3 for $105, 6 for $179 and all 12 in 2018 for $299). You determine which 3 or 6 topics you would like to include in your bundle.

Qualification and Reliability of Microvias

By Dr. Michael H. Azarian

December 4, 2018 / 8am Pacific Time

With increasing interconnect densities, fan-out of signal line interconnects raises challenges in printed circuit board design. Microvias have become an important feature in resolving high density interconnection challeges. In general, microvias had been demostrated a general robust interconnect solution through development and test.

This web seminar will examined the qualification and reliability of microvias. In addition, the influence of electroplating defects on reliability of microvias, as well as the interface delamination issue related to electroless copper will be discussed. Recommendations and guidelines will be offered for minimizing the effects of plating defects on reliability of microvias, and enabling improvement of HDI board design and process control. A method will be provided to determine the likelihood of delamination due to eletroless copper bonding.

The Essentials of Risk Assessment and Risk Mitigation

By David Auda

December 5, 2018 / 8:30-10:30am Pacific Time

$200

Risk analysis can be part of the preventive efforts in development as well as part of the process that is activated once an unanticipated failure has occurred, referred to as Risk Mitigation. On the preventive side it may include things like Preliminary Hazards Analysis, Risk Assessment, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, etc. It may also include things like Designed Experiments, Accelerated Life Testing and/or Highly Accelerated Life Testing when new technologies, new materials and/or new applications are explored. On the reactive side of risk, when a failure has already presented itself, the effort would include Root Cause Analysis along with some of the aforementioned testing approaches to confirm solutions.

All of the above mentioned tools should be evidence based, and as such, require guidance on decision making given the available evidence. The supporting data of a failure may be very limited in some cases and reliance could depend on testimony and/or beliefs. This webinar will serve those practitioners that are tasked with deciding on what tool is appropriate, what level of competence is required, and what types of evidence are acceptable. With systems complexity outpacing the ability of traditional risk investigation tools to deliver robust results, some discussion of ‘next steps’ will be included, time permitting.

How to Handle Underfill in Sherlock?

By Natalie Hernandez

December 6, 2018 / 11am Eastern Time

Underfill materials are actively used to fortify PCB designs so that these products can fulfil a plethora of applications and industry standards. From NASA’s space probe, Juno, to autonomous vehicles, underfill materials are present everywhere. While underfilling is a decades long technique, the materials implemented are continuously evolving in response to the growing needs of the electronics industry. New materials require extensive time and resources to fully characterize the mechanical properties and its influence on key components on an assembly.

To alleviate the need for some testing, simulation is used as a complimentary effort to qualify material changes. Sherlock distinguishes itself as the only simulation tool used in the electronics industry to predict the success of underfill materials. During this webinar you will learn how Sherlock uses a combination of FEA and Reliability Physics to quantify the life of a product stressed by its field and test environments.

What’s Missing in Your Root Cause Analysis Program?

December 7, 2018 / 8am Pacific Time

During this FREE 45-minute live Webinar, you’ll learn more about the five basic elements for establishing a comprehensive root cause analysis program: the method; measurements; roles in the investigation process; facilitation, documentation & storage; and review of the entire program.

Asset Data

December 11, 2018  / 5:30am Pacific time OR December 13, 2018 / 8am Pacific Time

The vital importance of correct, complete, and comprehensive asset data is demonstrated. The relative importance to the business goals are illustrated as a means to classify assets. Factors such as regulatory compliance, production throughput, and profits plan are explained as factors in determining asset criticality.

How Mobile Field Data Collection Can Improve Asset Performance

By Ken Latino

December 11, 2018 / 9am Pacific Time

Free for members / $35 non-members

In this webinar, we will go over the basic steps to starting an electronic field data collection initiative. This would include Operator Driven Reliability (ODR), maintenance PM’s and inspection, lubrication management, etc. We will cover the work process steps along with some tips on mobile technology and integration between various plant systems. This webinar is for anyone who is responsible for improving the overall performance (reliability) of equipment within an industrial facility.

Inspecting PWB Assemblies for Defects

By Bob Wettermann

December 11, 2018 / 10am-11:30 Pacific Time

$25 for members / $95 non-members

This webinar is designed to help the EMS and PWB builders screen for, test and develop inspectors for PCB final assembly. The people attending this session should have familiarity with the latest IPC-A-610 inspection standard. We will review some of the more common “gotchas” found in the final inspection of PWBs. The session will also discuss the options for manual inspection equipment including but not limited to lighting, magnification aids and ESD control in the inspection area. In addition, this session will go on to discuss eyesight issues, visual acuity, color siting, hand-eye coordination and testing of these attributes. This will help in the screening process for nurturing that next inspector. Finally, there will be a real time short “test” of various devices and boards with anomalies and sample defects.

This is intended for production personnel, process engineers and QC managers trying to hire, train up and nurture the next tier of inspectors.

Analysis of Large Heterogeneous Repairable System: Reliability Data in Big Data Environment

By Prasanna Tamilselvan, Ph.D.

December 11, 2018  / 11am Pacific Time

This webcast will focus on the value of developing holistic reliability program with different reliability assessment tools in Refinery Asset Management to identify top bad actors in refinery units and optimize maintenance strategies; and potential challenges to be faced during the reliability program implementation.

10 Tips to Build a Better Maintenance Team

By Mike Cowley

December 11, 2018  / 12pm Pacific Time

Free for members / $29 non-members

Once again, one of America’s foremost speakers on maintenance management topics will give us ten tips that will help us build a better maintenance team. We will look at the current state of maintenance staffing, hiring hurdles, interview & hiring tips, how to identify performance and skill gaps in your current team and changing the organization’s behavior and culture.

Cooling Techniques for Electronic Equipment Overview

By Steve Carlson

December 12, 2018  / 8:30-11:30am Pacific Time

$300

Don’t wait until your electronic equipment over-heats or fails because of poor cooling. Find out if your present systems are adequately cooled, how to avoid many common cooling problems and how to design efficient, reliable cooling systems for many different types of electronic cabinets. The purpose of this 3-hr webinar is to show designers and engineers an overview of the quick methods for designing electronic equipment to withstand severe thermal environments without failing. Techniques are presented which will permit the evaluation and design of cost effective, compact cooling systems, without the aid of a large digital computer.

Learn simple design rules, and guidelines, which can improve the effective cooling of your sophisticated electronic components used in today’s military, industrial and commercial electronic systems. Learn methods for determining thermal stresses in lead wires and solder joints due to a mismatch in thermal expansions.

This course is based upon the popular book Cooling Techniques for Electronic Equipment by Mr. Dave Steinberg. Questions are encouraged during the webinar, to make sure each participant understands the design techniques and application presented.

Amazon Package Certification Update – December 2018

By Andrew Thomas

December 12, 2018 / 10am OR 2pm Pacific Time

WESTPAK’s test professionals offer an update to the Package Certification required by Amazon as of August 2019 on certain packages. We discuss Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging Vendor Incentive Program and why it’s a good idea. We review the planned $1.99 per unit fee for non-compliance, the one-time credit of $1.00 per unit for achieving compliance, and package certification tips.

What’s Covered:
• Summary of Amazon’s September 2018 announcement
• Review of the current incentives and planned fees
• High-level review of ISTA 6-Amazon standards

Webinar Will Provide Participants With:
• Overview of the Frustration-Free Program (FFP)
• Understanding of how to get packages certified
• Tips to maintain ISTA certification
• Certificate of Attendance
• Live Q&A

How to Solve ‘Can’t Find Root Cause’ Systems Problems

By Duke Okes

December 13, 2018 / 10am Pacific Time

$199

If you perform root cause analysis (RCA) often enough you’ll eventually encounter a roadblock: Critical data that is unavailable or insufficient to present a conclusive solution to a critical manufacturing systems problem. What then? With the clock ticking and costs mounting, your organization is left paralyzed.

Or is it? Whether or not good data are available, the solutions to “cant’ find root cause” situations may lie in a perspective shift. In this illuminating webinar, quality systems expert Duke Okes teaches you to ask: Is this a “can’t” or a “don’t want to” situation? Because there are ways to deal with inadequate, inaccurate, and/or conflicting systems data—and still find your way to definitive decisions and solutions. Okes will also show you how to develop potential responses even when root-cause-focused solutions are hard to come by, or not an option at all.

This session will go well beyond the basics of RCA training to introduce you to a wider range of data types and interpretation methods for various challenging scenarios. After attending, you’ll have a fully equipped toolbox of options to address quality system challenges—that include alternative approaches to unearthing root causes as well as to identifying (and justifying) alternative responses to problems.

Don’t let problems mount because you think you don’t have the key to finding the root cause. Learn to work with and around the intelligence you do have to: document decisions, choose the level(s) of system to act on, and take appropriate action with a degree of confidence— rather than a high level of uncertainty.

Introduction to 5-Why for Frontline Professionals

December 14, 2017 / 8am Pacific Time

Typically, your frontline people are the first to experience problems in your company. Oftentimes small anomalies are overlooked or unreported to management because they seem normal to the frontline – “it always does that.” A thorough incident investigation reveals signals that had been missed for days, months and sometimes even years.

There’s a huge amount of frontline information and insight available if a company knows how to access it. Frontline employees should be problem-solving lookouts for your organization. The closer problem analysis is moved to the day-to-day work, the better an organization’s ability to respond and reduce the likelihood of catastrophic events. This is one of the advantages of 5-Why for the frontline. This webinar will contrast the conventional approach to 5 Whys with our 5-Why Cause Mapping method, and we’ll explain how you can apply it to your organization.