Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Carl and Fred discuss a suggested topic from a listener: what is the ultimate career goal for a reliability engineer? Which are the advantages and disadvantages for each possible career path?
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Every journey begins with a statement of the goal or objective. Why would it be any different for FMEA? Yet, some FMEA teams do not clearly identifying the focus of the analysis. This sounds simple, and it is; but, it is very important. This article explains why.
“Begin with the end in mind” – Stephen Covey
Carl and Fred discussing the three most important principles that summarize the reliability philosophy of successful companies, focusing on the third principle.
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Carl and Fred discussing the three most important principles that summarize the reliability philosophy of successful companies, with focus on the second principle.
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Carl and Fred discussing the question: Is it more important to calculate reliability or to achieve reliability?
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This article culminates the first major milestone in the Inside FMEA series of articles: the “FMEA Fundamentals Series.” The next series is called: “FMEA Preparation Series.”
“Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.” Nelson Mandela
Carl and Fred discussing design requirements and how they influence reliability decisions.
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Carl and Fred discuss the various types of interfaces in electrical and mechanical systems and how they should be included in reliability analyses.
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Can you take into account reliability or durability functions in an FMEA? How can this be done? A reader asks this question, and it is discussed and answered in this FMEA Q and A article.
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
Francis Bacon
Carl and Fred discussing the importance of understanding and applying failure mechanisms in achieving high reliability.
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Carl and Fred discussing to talk with management about the subject of reliability.
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In this week’s FMEA problems and solutions article, the intermediate problem challenges readers to prioritize a series of RPNs (with their corresponding S, O, and D). In the advanced problem, readers are asked to weigh in on a fictitious debate between advocates of traditional RPN, and advocates of criticality assessment, using only severity and occurrence.
If you haven’t yet read the article titled “Prioritizing risk for corrective actions in an FMEA – Know before you go!“, you can access it by clicking on the link.
Carl and Fred discussing the reasons for performing a Reliability Gap Assessment, and how it fits into the Reliability Plan.
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Carl and Fred discussing a few basic steps necessary to create an effective reliability plan, including setting the goals, understanding the challenges and identifying the key tasks.
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Note from author:
Since this article was originally published, there are subsequent articles in the “Inside FMEA” series that further describe better approaches than RPN to risk prioritization. Here are links:
Is There a Better Way Than RPN?
Risk Prioritization in FMEA – a Summary
Is There a Better Way Than RPN?
Text of the original article:
One of the most important steps in FMEA procedure is prioritizing risk for corrective actions. As soon as Severity, Occurrence, and Detection ratings have been determined for each failure mode and associated cause, the next step in an FMEA is to prioritize the risk and identify which issues need corrective actions. This step has been misapplied more often than any other step in the FMEA process.
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Voltaire