I Built 4 Powerful Calculators and Made Them Free for Every Reliability Engineer

If you’ve worked in reliability or maintenance for any length of time, you’ve probably sat through a meeting where someone asks “so how many spares do we need?” and the answer is basically “well, we’ve always kept two on the shelf.” Or the classic PM frequency debate — why is it every 6 months? Because it’s always been every 6 months.

That kind of thing bugged me. Not because people are lazy, but because the right tools to do it properly are usually locked behind expensive software or buried in a textbook somewhere. So I built four free, browser-based calculators that cover the core decisions reliability engineers deal with all the time. No logins, no licence fees, no fluff. [Read more…]

by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

Hardware Product Realization in the Age of AI

Chapter 5: Applying Agile Hardware Techniques and Changing the Normalized “Old Ways”

In the previous chapter the differences between agile Hardware and Agile Software were explored. This chapter explores the first part of a practical look at how to apply agile methodologies to your hardware development process.

First let’s examine the impact of following the “old ways” that have become normalized as part of the everyday hardware development processes:

Developing any hardware-based product requires careful planning, management, design, and testing before it can be manufactured and shipped to customers. This has resulted in the traditional “waterfall” development model, where work is done in a series of serial activities, with review and approval requirements before moving along the development path.

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

Hardware Product Realization in the Age of AI

Chapter 4: Difference between Agile Hardware and Agile Software

In the previous chapter, how markets and global needs can impact your product was discussed.

In this chapter the differences between agile Hardware and Agile Software are explored to allow you understand how to apply agile techniques to a hardware development workflow.

The desire to gain a competitive advantage by releasing products faster has driven the widespread adoption of agile software methodologies. More recently, a push to apply agile techniques into the hardware development process has yielded mixed results, This is because electronic hardware products cannot be tested until complete subassemblies are built, and so important modifications to the product realization process are necessary.

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by JD Solomon Leave a Comment

Can Understanding Risk Appetite Help a Reliability Engineer’s Career?

Reliability engineers often struggle with the concept of risk appetite and how it impacts decision making. The long answer is that risk appetite is real and has been recognized by decision analysis academics and gurus over the past fifty years. The shorter, more practical answer is that risk appetite exists in every organization, but it is more implicit than explicit. Context (timing and position) significantly affects risk appetite.

My appetite is often driven by what I ate recently, who else is sharing the meal, and who is doing the cooking. But then, some days I want chicken and some days I want steak.

Risk Defined

Colloquially and according to most dictionaries, risk is defined as “the possibility of loss or injury; peril” (Merriam-Webster).

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

Hardware Product Realization in the Age of AI

Chapter 3: Understanding your Markets

In the previous chapter, the Product Realization will be defined at a high level as well as the ideas behind a New Product Development Introduction (sometimes written as NPDI) framework.

In this chapter the effects of the market on your product are discussed, what you think is the best version of your idea may be influenced by many factors in the markets you believe you can sell it to.

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

Hardware Product Realization in the Age of AI

Chapter 2: Defining Product Realization and New Product Introduction

In the previous episode, the concepts of agile hardware product realization were introduced along with the idea of the ten best practices. Before diving into the details of these, there are a few basics to understand. In this episode Product Realization will be defined at a high level as well as the ideas behind a New Product Development Introduction (sometimes written as NPDI) framework.

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by Michael Keer Leave a Comment

Hardware Product Realization in the Age of AI

In this series, we’ll dive into insights from the soon-to-be-released updated book on hardware product realization by unpacking the strategies, pitfalls, and opportunities that will define the future of building hardware in an AI-driven world.

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