Fred Schenkelberg — Thought Leader

Author of CRE Preparation Notes, Musings", NoMTBF, multiple books & ebooks>, co-host on Speaking of Reliability>/a>, and speaker in the Accendo Reliability Webinar Series.

This author's archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Case of Drones

Guest post by Dr. Amir Segal & Yizhak Bot of BQR

Introduction

Reliability engineers are equipped with an arsenal of techniques (FTA, RBD, Markov, FMEA / FMECA, SIL) for reliability, availability, safety and maintainability analysis. However, it is not always clear when to use each technique.
In order to design a safe and reliable product, reliability engineering techniques should be integrated with the system design process. This fact is well known, and today many system engineering conferences include discussions regarding reliability and safety [1,2]. [Read more…]

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Time Compression Accelerated Life Testing

The Easy One

The easiest ALT is one that you operate an item more often then operated by the customer. Removing spans of time the item is not being bent, moved, heated, etc allows you to use time compression.

For example, a home kitchen toaster may be used for a few cycles during breakfast time in your home. In the lab, we can avoid having to wait the day of idle time and just make toast more often than just at breakfast to accelerate the operation of a toaster.

Time compression ALT is also easy to understand and describe the acceleration factor to cover the ALT results to field use conditions. Let’s explore a simple example, work out the acceleration factor and how to interpret a set of ALT results. [Read more…]

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Soft Skills For Reliability Engineers

The Hard Part is often Soft Skills

There are many paths to becoming a reliability engineer.

If you are good with statistics, enjoy the detective work of failure analysis, or simply want to create a durable long lasting product, you likely found yourself in a reliability engineering role.

A science or engineering background is a great start. Time spent working with a design or maintenance team certainly help. An advanced degree in reliability engineering is another path.

The element that is often missing as a precursor become starting a career in reliability is excellent soft skills. We know the engineering and science stuff. The formulas, the testing, the data analysis. We can get stuff done in the lab or on the shop floor.

Yet to become an exceptional reliability engineer, or any type of engineer, add the ability to communicate well. Add the ability to get your point across and to wield influence to help others understand and accept your proposals, ideas, and results. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 7 Comments

4 Different Types of Reliability Testing

Getting the Right Information from Your Reliability Testing

You cannot test in reliability any more than you can test in quality. Often reliability testing is done though, and knowing the range of testing approaches and their associated results will help you get the most information from each test conducted.

Let’s explore the types of testing that generate information useful as you develop a reliable product. There are 4 different types of reliability testing:

Discovery
Life
Environmental
Regulatory

Within each type there are many variations to the testing details and the specific results generated. Understanding the questions each type of testing has the capability to resolve is a good first step to implementing the right set of tests for your project. [Read more…]

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Fundamentals of HALT

An Introduction, Basic Steps, and Examples of How HALT Goes Wrong

HALT promises to find the weaknesses in your design early in the design process. Understanding the basic concepts underlying HALT enables you to do so effectively. Let’s discuss this essential discovery tool and how it fits into your program.
[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 3 Comments

4 Steps to Accomplish HALT

4 Not Always Easy Steps

Highly Accelerated Life Testing, HALT, is a method to discover the weaknesses in a design. Using a step stress approach of single and combined stresses, you can quickly expose the salient weaknesses in your design and/or assembly process.

The value of HALT is it’s quick and often finds problems not previously known. You will destroy one or more prototypes, yet the value of knowing specifically what needs improvement more than justifies the sacrifice of a few photos.

Conducting HALT may be part of your reliability plan. Keeping a few steps in mind will help make sure your HALT does provide value back to your development efforts. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Guest Post: Why Soft Skills Are the Hardest Skills to Acquire

A Guest Post by Kay Sandberg, Christopher Harding, and Will Wilkinson of Luminary Communications

Remember that first time you were asked to step into a leadership or management role, or to manage a client relationship? The experience was probably exciting and unsettling at the same time. Something different was asked of you.

While many of us have succeeded as individual contributors or team members, succeeding as a leader or manager requires a new set of skills we have often not been given the opportunity to acquire. This applies whether we carry an official leadership responsibility or not. In a future article it would be interesting to explore the distinction between “leader” and “manager”. [Read more…]

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Taguchi Design of Experiments Approach

Dr. Taguchi was an engineer, not a statistician. He considered the ability of design of experiments (DOE) to identify and reduce sources of variability, yet needed a system that did not require a statistician to implement.

Dr. Taguchi proposed a few considerations for those applying the Taguchi design of experiments approach. [Read more…]

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Using rain-flow counting methods for process wear out studies

Guest Post Prepared by Eugene Danneman, Wind Wear LLC

Introduction

Analyzing and visualizing data that is related to equipment wear-out (fatigue stage) over a specific time span is a challenge. Analyzing systems, equipment and components exposed to spectrum loading as opposed to uniform cyclical loading that span years or decades or centuries requires a special approach. Think of roads, bridges and other assets with long life spans that are susceptible to wear out mechanisms caused by external and internal loads, varying load durations, temperature swings and corrosion. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

Taguchi’s 3 Fundamental Concepts

Taguchi may be best known for the variation of design of experiments that bear his name. Yet the impact of his work is felt across the product life cycle and all of the quality field.

Building on Deming’s observations that 85% of poor quality is due to faulty processes and only 15% due to the worker, Taguchi focused on creating robust processes.

A robust system is one that tolerates the daily and seasonal variations of the environment, machine wear, and equipment part-to-part variation, etc. A robust system operating in the range of real world conditions. [Read more…]

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You Are a Reliability Leader, Now Make a Difference

Your Reliability Engineering Leadership Role

Leadership is not a position or title within an organization. It is an attitude.

You’ve seen the internet meme’s about the difference between leadership and management. There is a difference and while not everyone is going to be in top management, everyone can (and should) be a leader.

As a reliability professional, you are conveniently looked to for leadership. You are expected to use your knowledge and skill to solve problems. To help teams solve problems. To improve the reliability performance of your system and across your industry. [Read more…]

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The Perfect Strength and Stress Concepts

Recently Peter Stuttard asked if I knew of a reference for the perfect strength and perfect stress concepts. I didn’t and asked for a bit of explanation of the phrases.

Here is his reply (via Linkedin, btw a great tool to get and stay in touch) posted with permission with minor formatting edits.

To learn more about Peter check out his Linkedin profile.

Fred

Thanks for responding so quickly, the concepts of Perfect Strength and Perfect Stress are related to your discussion re Parts Count and Parts Stress predictions and reading this on your web site prompted me to ask you about them. [Read more…]

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Fundamentals of FMEA

An Introduction, Basic Steps, and Examples of How FMEA Goes Wrong

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) starts with brainstorming and ends with prioritized actions. A great tool to get your team thinking about system failures. Let’s explore the fundamental steps and beset practices to get value from your analysis.
[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 3 Comments

Introduction to the Quality Triangle

Priorities and Balance

Have you ever worked on a project with no deadlines, unlimited resources, and boundless scope? Probably not.

Quality Triangle-1 — The Quality Triangle

You may have worked under the guidelines of a quality triangle, also known as a project management triangle, iron triangle, or project triangle.

Why is that? Why the limits to our ability to create a product or improve a system?

First, the world we work and live within has limits. We have only so much time for work, only the available resources, and limited knowledge. We do our best with what we have to work with at the time.

Second, as I once was told while working on an accelerated test design, ‘if there isn’t a deadline, you’ll happily tinker with the plan and get the testing done.’ My boss was right of course.

The set of constraints shape our projects and products. By understanding the set of constraints, specifically how they frame decisions, then we can complete complex projects. [Read more…]

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SOR 201 A Chat at RAMS with Thomas Olesen

A Chat at RAMS with Thomas Olesen

Abstract

Fred and Thomas sat down at RAMS 2017 to talk about his work as a reliability engineer (actually a quality engineer) and a range of reliablity topics.
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