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Prep notes for ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer exam ISSN 2165-8633
The CRE Preparation Notes series provides you with short practical tutorials on all the elements that make up the ASQ CRE body of knowledge. The articles provide introductory material, basics, how-tos, examples, and practical use guidance for the full range of reliability engineering concepts, terms, tools, and practices.
Keep your knowledge fresh by regularly reviewing topics and tools that make up reliability engineering.
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You will find the most recent tutorials in reverse chronological order below.
“Statistics is the language of variation.” I’m sure that is a quote by someone, not me, though. It is true. Statistics is all about variation. In this post let’s explore some of the ways statisticians talk about data and specifically the amount of dispersion in the data. [Read more…]
This is hopefully completely a review. The mastery of basic statistical terms is important as many of the questions on the CRE are statistical in nature and rely on your understanding the terms. Let’s simply review the terms, and do let me know if you have any questions.
Let’s take a random sample from a population. Given a [Read more…]
Generally, I do not talk about statistics before 10am – it’s not polite.
As a reliability professional, statistics is a central feature of the value I bring to the team. And, not just the reliability statistics, all stats. It continues to amaze me how many engineers, scientists, and professionals tend to avoid statistics. [Read more…]
There are four functions related to life distributions of importance to reliability engineering.
Nearly all textbooks on reliability either introduce or use these functions. Likewise, nearly every calculation related to reliability statistics also uses at least one of functions.
Suppose we produced 100 units of a product and tracked them all till failure over time.
Eventually, all of them would fail. And, unlike the Parson’s One Hoss Shay the products and their components would not all fail at the same time.
One way to track the failures over time is to use a simple histogram.
By plotting the number of failures each month, for example, we would [Read more…]
Understanding the math is critical not only for the exam, but it is also important for your ability to function as a reliability professional.
Most of us did not enjoy our undergraduate statistics course. It was just another course to endure as part of being in an engineering or science track.
The basic concepts and approaches to working with data are fundamental for some many situations. [Read more…]
As 12%* of the CRE exam, this is a major section, yet not a very difficult one. There are three basic areas:
If you’ve ever needed to secure funding or samples for a reliability test or had to respond to customer field returns, then you probably already understand the value of reliability.
In some businesses, product reliability is critical to the product’s success. Some businesses strive to be the leading ‘reliable’ producer in the market. [Read more…]
I’ve learned a lot in my career and have attempted to help others to the best of my ability.
Teaching is fun.
It is also enjoyable to know a little of what I’ve learned from others may continue to be passed along.
The ASQ CRE certification is a milestone in a reliability engineer’s career. It is not an end nor a beginning, just a milestone to mark the achievement.
The CRE BOK encompasses a broad range of concepts and tools.
Passing the exam marks the person as having mastered the body of knowledge as laid out in the ASQ CRE BOK.