The Hunt for Reliability Training
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss how you go about ‘hunting’ reliability training. And we do mean ‘hunt.’
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SOR 646 The Hunt for Reliability Training
How do I set up my reliability engineering career?
One of the enduring beauties and mysteries of reliability engineering is that there is no straight forward definition of who a reliability engineer is. Proactive, successful organizations, employ reliability engineers in many different and tailored ways. Reactive, ‘barely solvent’ organizations use reliability engineers as over-qualified auditors, expected to clap system configurations through design review gates as quickly and quietly as possible.
So what does this mean for you and your reliability engineering career? Are you in a position now that you are not entirely happy with? Are you in an industry on a downward trend … meaning that sooner or later you need to move to a greener pasture? Or do you want to become a better version of yourself and feel more valued than you currently do? [Read more…]
5 reasons you need to do reliability allocation (and 1 reason you don’t)
One of the more overlooked elements of leadership is explained direction. This is where leaders take the time to describe (in a tailored, personal way) to everyone how their individual efforts directly contribute to organizational success.
The leader of course first needs to have a clear idea of what success and a strategy to get there (otherwise how can they know how you or I are an important part of getting there?) People appreciate when leaders explain to them how their HR, design review, testing and quality assurance efforts directly create value. This helps motivate, measuring achievement and all sorts of other good stuff. [Read more…]
Do you ‘want’ something … or just ‘like the idea of it?’
Let’s say that someone has decided they want to get better at something. Perhaps they want to lose weight. Perhaps they want to learn a language. Perhaps they want to learn to play the guitar.
The next thing they might do is find an expert who can help them. A personal trainer. A linguist. A music teacher. They then go and find their expert. But … in the very first meeting, they tell their expert:
‘Just so you know, I am NOT going to (1) stop eating hamburgers, (2) do homework or (3) practice playing.’ [Read more…]
SOR 641 How to Become a Reliability Engineering Consultant
How to Become a Reliability Engineering Consultant
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss how to become a reliability engineering consultant. This is a very natural question for a lot of us. It might be easy to visualize what you want to achieve. But it can be daunting to get there.
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SOR 640 How Reliable Does My System Need to Be?
How Reliable Does My System Need to Be?
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss how you go about setting a reliability goal. We got asked by someone who was responsible for a ‘complex’ system …
How reliable does our system need to be?
Unfortunately … you need to tell us that! Hopefully this webinar will help you start asking the right question to work it out for yourself.
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So it’s COTS – of course you demand that it be reliable!
Well, we are going COTS, so there is no point creating (or demanding) reliability specifications for it.
Really?
I was just speaking to a couple of engineers – from different organizations – who were coincidentally struggling with the reliability of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) systems. COTS is a funny term. Big contractors, governmental organizations and militaries use the term ‘COTS’ a lot. But they tend to be the only ones who do. [Read more…]
Creating an ad hoc reliability team that actually achieves something
In one of my recent webinars on ‘reliability culture,’ I was asked a really good question. Someone (let’s call him ‘Tim’) asked me:
How do I get the most out of my ‘ad hoc’ reliability team?
Tim had recently created a ‘reliability team’ made up of people from different areas of his organization. These people were smart, qualified, but had non-reliability engineering day jobs. They weren’t qualified reliability engineers. They weren’t idiots. And they couldn’t devote all their time to reliability. [Read more…]
Fixing the Irrelevance of Reliability in Your Organization: Just ask ‘why’
Fixing the Irrelevance of Reliability in Your Organization: Just ask ‘why’
podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson
There are so many books on leadership, management, more leadership, reliability, quality, customer first, even more leadership, et cetera. But there remains a common refrain I hear repeatedly from reliability engineers struggling to make a difference: ‘Reliability is just not relevant to my organization.’ There is a common thread to this common refrain – we only hear it from people who work in organizations that don’t have a clear understanding of ‘why’ they are doing what they do.
Reliability … and why always asking ‘are we there yet’ doesn’t work
A common refrain from managers and engineers alike (as it relates to making or maintaining reliable products) is:
How do we know if we are there yet?
This makes reliability engineering sound like driving a car, sanding a piece of wood, mowing the lawn, or any other endeavour where efforts perfectly align with progress.
This doesn’t work for reliability. Reliability can be easy to achieve, but it needs to be thought about in a different way. And when you do, everything becomes easier. [Read more…]
The “3 P’s” – Avoiding the Most Common Pitfalls of Establishing a Reliability Program
I often talk to engineers who have just been told that they are now a ‘reliability guy or girl’ for their organization. The CEO or perhaps a director decides that reliability is now important, so a group of poor unfortunates are hastily and collectively anointed as ‘the’ reliability program. Is this familiar?
Sometimes this works. Sometimes these rebranded ‘reliability guys and girls’ create amazing programs that [Read more…]
SOR 633 Assessing Reliability Courses
Assessing Reliability Courses
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss what you need to think about when selecting your next reliability engineering course. What course do you need to do to become a better engineer (and more valuable to your organization)?
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SOR 632 Statistics and Reliability
Statistics and Reliability
Abstract
Chris and Fred discuss what came first … reliability or statistics? Reliability of course! There are plenty of organizations that focus on baking reliability into designs without the need for statistics. But statistics are a part of reliability engineering. So what is the relationship between the two? Listen to this podcast to learn more.
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10 Reasons you Need to do Reliability Engineering
Reliability engineering has an image problem. It is seen as an imbugerance that destroys budget, schedule and fun. People sometimes think reliability engineering is simply statistics, data analysis and other mind-numbing stuff. Reliability purgatory. Which brings us to the first reason you need to do reliability engineering.
#1 – Reliability engineering is not reliability purgatory. Reliability purgatory is all effort and no outcomes. Reliability happens at the point of decision. Design decisions. Manufacturing decisions. Maintenance decisions. True reliability engineering helps you make better decisions – which often comes down to organized judgment and not statistics.
You Can’t ‘Contract’ your Way to Reliability
A recent student of mine was an engineer for a rail corporation. Let’s call her Liz. Liz kept asking me ‘what do I need to put in a contract’ to make sure my suppliers take reliability seriously? She kept asking this over, and over, until I got the penny to drop. Liz eventually realized that she was the one who had to take it seriously. [Read more…]
