Don’t let this biohazard get in the way of bringing your own goals alive. Here’s how…
[Read more…]Articles
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
DOE-7: Analyse Factorial Design with Minitab: Case Study in Maximizing Fatigue Strength
Dear friends, this is part-2 of our video on Design of Experiments using Minitab. In part-1, Hemant Urdhwareshe had explained how to create design using Minitab. In this part-2 of the video, Hemant has illustrated complete details of analysis of the design using Minitab. Analysis includes interpretation of Minitab output in voice and text!
We are sure, you will find this video extremely useful for Quality Practitioners, Reliability Engineers, Design and Process Engineers, Six Sigma Professionals, Design for Six Sigma practitioners. Some corrections at 5:21 — The R-sq value is 95.45, R-sq Adjusted is 92.53 and R-sq Predicted is 86.63%. There is some error in these figures in the video. Apologise for the oversight.
[Read more…]Key Teaching Principle # 9: Constructive Feedback
As covered in the first article in this series, Principles of Effective Teaching, reliability engineers, FMEA team leaders, and other quality and reliability professionals are often called upon to teach the principles of reliability or FMEA. Whether you are a student who wants to enhance your learning experience, an instructor who wants to improve teaching results, or an engineer who wishes to convey knowledge to another person, this series will offer practical knowledge and advice.
Provide constructive feedback to students
“True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes” Daniel Kahneman
Key Teaching Principle #9 is the instructor always answers questions in a meaningful way, and provides consistently positive critiques to students to enhance their learning. [Read more…]
FINESSE Fishbone: The Second S Stands for Synergy
Reliability engineers, systems engineers, and other technically trained professionals often support big decisions. Big decisions involve high levels of complexity and uncertainty, Decision makers are driven to seek the advice of an inner circle. Team dynamics overpower individual preferences. The second S in the FINESSE fishbone diagram stands for Synergy. These three tips and a three-minute video will help you improve Synergy.
[Read more…]Reliability vs. Durability
It seems a big misconception in different industries between those two terms “Reliability” and “Durability”. So, first thing first, I apply google research to find out what is definitions:
Reliability is defined as the probability that a product, system, or service will perform its intended function adequately for a specified period of time or will operate in a defined environment without failure. (Source American Society for Quality (ASQ))
Durability is the ability of a physical product to remain functional, without requiring excessive maintenance or repair, when faced with the challenges of normal operation over its design lifetime. (Source Wikipedia)
[Read more…]Consider the Decision Making First
Reliability activities serve one purpose: to support better decision making.
That is all it does. Reliability work may reveal design weaknesses, which we can decide to address. Reliability work may estimate the longevity of a device, allowing decisions when compared to objectives for reliability.
Creating a report that no one reads is not the purpose of reliability. Running a test or analysis to simply ‘do reliability’ is not helpful to anyone. Anything with MTBF involved … well, you know how I feel about that. [Read more…]
Advice to Managers on Getting Most Value from Workforce Training
The purpose of training your people is to develop capabilities the business needs and to add value to your people so they feel that they have greater worth. But the most important benefit of training is often lost because managers do not get their newly trained people to improve the system of work with their better knowledge and skills.
Everyone needs training to reach their highest potential. Training introduces new ideas and new ways that make us more effective people. There is one vital issue managers need to keep in mind about training if you want to get the greatest returns from the investment in time, money and commitment. Only training put to use returns value and only training of value is of use.
[Read more…]Auditing Safety Management Systems
Guest Post by Bill Pomfret (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
In any given PSM audit, the auditors will usually face one or more situations that represent a dilemma because the situation has not happened before, or no thought has been given on how to resolve it. These dilemmas usually require the individual auditor and/or the audit team leader resolve the situation in the field. These “on the fly” resolutions require both astute judgment and practical solutions that fit not only the governing regulations or company/facility standards for PSM, but also how those mandatory requirements should be interpreted and applied to the specific design, operations, and PSM program of the facility being audited.
The PSM audit dilemmas described in this paper are based on the experiences of seasoned auditors during actual PSM audits. Several of them are PSM adaptations of those published by Safety Projects International Inc., et al in 5 Star Health & Safety Management System™ Health and Safety Audits. In general, there are no absolute right or wrong answers to solving these dilemmas, although in some cases a resolution might seem obvious.
[Read more…]DOE-6: Case Study in Creating Full Factorial Design in Minitab: Optimization of Fatigue Strength
Hello friends, We are happy to release this sixth video on Design of Experiments (DOE)! In this video, Hemant Urdhwareshe has illustrated step by step, how to create a full factorial design in Minitab software. In the next video, Hemant will illustrate complete analysis of the design in Minitab! We are sure, you will find this video extremely useful for Quality Practitioners, Design and Process Engineers, Six Sigma Professionals, Design for Six Sigma practitioners.
[Read more…]Opportunities for Maintenance and Operations: No Part Replaced
This informative video provides valuable insights into how we respond to operations and help them improve their processes. By pulling data out of the CMMS, we can identify areas of opportunity and provide recommendations for improvement.
For example, by analyzing the data, we can see where operators may need training, or where improvements can be made in the incoming raw material process. Our goal is to provide practical, actionable advice that can help you maximize your resources and achieve success in your manufacturing facility.
[Read more…]How to not Suck at Probability and Statistics
A simple way of looking at our brain is by dividing it into the conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds. The conscious mind is all about what we are actively thinking about in the here and now. We might be navigating as we drive through the countryside. We might decide to take an exit from the main road because our conscious mind has worked out that the map we are looking at is showing us that’s what we need to do to get to where we want to go.
Building a PF Curve Using Life Analysis Concepts
Definition of a PF Curve
A PF curve is a graphical tool used in the field of maintenance and reliability. It essentially illustrates a component’s health degradation over its lifetime. As well as a visual guide on when to conduct appropriate action to minimizes operational risks related to unplanned failures. It is essentially a planning tool.
[Read more…]What is Wrong With Success Testing?
Three prototypes survive the gauntlet of stresses and none fail. That is great news, or is it? No failure testing is what I call success testing.
We often want to create a design that is successful, therefore enjoying successful testing results, I.e. No failures means we are successful, right?
Another aspect of success testing is in pass/fail type testing we can minimize the sample size by planning for all prototypes passing the test. If we plan on running the test till we have a failure or two, we need more samples. While it improves the statistics of the results, we have to spend more to achieve the results. We nearly always have limited resources for testing.
Let’s take a closer look at success testing and some of the issues you should consider before planning your next success test. [Read more…]
ALT or Durability Test?
A brief discussion on the difference and similarities of accelerated life testing (ALT) and durability testing. For one difference, ALT used high stress conditions to shorten the time to failure. Whereas, durability testing typically uses whole products and normal use condition.
[Read more…]Normal Distribution in Reliability Analysis
Normal distribution is most common in real life scenarios be it modeling any reliability performance parameter at a specific time. Central Limit Theorem (CLT) shows why normal distribution occurs so often.
[Read more…]