on Product Reliability

This is our fifth article about the 3 ways to do reliability allocation. We have been taken on a journey through the reliability design cycle, key steps for reliability allocation, allocation factors used to get these goals and key pitfalls. Now we finish off our conversation by looking at a few variations and applications. Allocating MTBF (… though we recommend against it), allocating availability, allocating maintainability (… another thing we recommend against) and allocating for different system reliability goals.

If you want to finish off your understanding of reliability allocation – read this!

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This is our fourth article about the 3 ways to do reliability allocation. The first three articles describe the reliability design cycle and how reliability allocation is a part of this cycle. Our last article focused on what options you, as a design team leader, have at your disposal when you realize that your components aren’t on track to meet their allocated goals (or doing something!) Now we talk about working out what these allocated goals are. And how to get them. And don’t worry – it is much easier than you probably think!

If you want to learn more about a straightforward approach to reliability allocation – read this!

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This is our third article about the 3 ways to do reliability allocation. In the first article, we set the scene. We talked about the reliability design cycle that needs to be implemented to make sure what we do will actually work. Will actually matter. In the second article, we cover the six steps of reliability allocation. In this article, we go through the six steps of reliability allocation.

You should have already read these articles – and if you haven’t please do! Once we have our reliability design cycle up and running, there are six key steps to making reliability allocation happen. And this article is about the sixth step – doing something!

If you want to learn more about a straightforward approach to reliability allocation – read this!

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This is our second article about the 3 ways to do reliability allocation. In the first article, we set the scene. We talked about the reliability design cycle that needs to be implemented to make sure what we do will actually work. Will actually matter. In this article, we go through the six steps of reliability allocation. You need to do the preparation work first. But … we are all about keeping it simple. Making it exhaustive and complicated means you are wasting your time.

If you want to learn more about a straightforward approach to reliability allocation – read this!

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If we have even a moderately complex product, we often need to break up our design team into smaller groups. Perhaps electronic, mechanical and hydraulic teams. Perhaps teams for specific functional components. And these teams need to work at least partially independently. So what do we do if we have a system reliability goal? What goals do we pass on to our smaller teams? This is where reliability allocation comes into play. Reliability allocation is often portrayed as a very complex, very involved and extremely exhaustive process. It should never be! In fact – the more exhaustive you make, the less likely it is to work.

If you want to learn more about a straightforward approach to reliability allocation – read this!

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As we make things to be more and more reliable, it gets harder and harder to make them fail in reliability tests. On the one hand – that’s great. On the other hand – that sucks if we want to use testing to help measure reliability. So if we are focused on measuring reliability through testing, we need to make our product or system fail in test conditions (without making it less reliable) but make sure these test conditions can somehow be translated back to how customers are going to use it. This is where accelerated testing comes in. [Read more…]