Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
“Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” Stephen Covey
If you’ve been reading the FMEA facilitation series, by now you understand the primary facilitation skills. Studying and applying these skills will help you achieve excellent results in FMEA applications. [Read more…]
Carl and Fred summarizing and discussing the latest questions received from readers and listeners.
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“Creativity is an ability to respond adaptively to the needs for new approaches and new products.” Frank Barron
Creativity is an essential ingredient to achieving excellence in FMEAs. Excerpts from the book Effective FMEAs will be used throughout the article.
Carl and Fred discussing a listener question about the use of FMEA when ramping up equipment in a plant. In this case, the equipment had been sitting dormant for a number of years.
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Carl and Fred discussing a listener question about when it is OK to celebrate reliability successes. Specifically, how long you have to wait to feel comfortable you have a successful product when nothing bad happens.
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The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. – Albert Einstein
In this article, we will discuss how to use brainstorming to enhance FMEA effectiveness, and when (and when not) to use brainstorming.
Carl and Fred discussing how to build rapport with colleagues, as one of the steps in shaping and influencing product designs and manufacturing processes.
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Carl and Fred discussing a listener question about the crossover knowledge between asset reliability and product reliability. What are the similarities? What are the differences? What about a potential career change between one and the other?
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“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress” – Gandhi
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “conflict” as, “an incompatibility between two or more opinions, principles, or interests.”
Conflicts are bound to arise from time to time. They can be positive and beneficial. An absence of any expressions of disagreement or conflict may indicate a problem in adequacy or quality of facilitation. Facilitators should not be afraid of conflict, but should learn the value of disagreements and how to manage them. Understanding the difference between healthy debates and dysfunctional arguments is critical to good facilitation. [Read more…]
Carl and Fred discussing a listener question about the value of certification in reliability engineering. Does it help one’s career advancement? Will it enhance one’s salary? What are the pros and cons? Does certification improve one’s prospects internationally?
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Carl and Fred discussing the future of the field of reliability engineering, including where we have been and where we are going.
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Carl and Fred discussing unusual and interesting reliability projects that cross disciplines.
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“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King
According to Merriam-Webster, a “decision” is “a choice that you make about something after thinking about it: the result of deciding.”
“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan
The Oxford English dictionary defines “reliability” as “the quality of being able to be trusted to do what somebody wants or needs.”
The textbook definition for “reliability” is “the probability that an item will perform its intended function for a designated period of time without failure under specified operating and environmental conditions.” [Read more…]
Carl and Fred having a new conversation about the age-old topic of key characteristics, and how they are used to improve products and processes.
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