on Product Reliability

A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:

Kirk Grey — Accelerated Reliability series

Les Warrington — Achieving the Benefits of Reliability series

Adam Bahret — Apex Ridge series

Michael Pfeifer — Metals Engineering and Product Reliability series

Fred Schenkelberg — Musings on Reliability and Maintenance series

Arthur Hart — Reliability Engineering Insights series

Chris Jackson — Reliability in Emerging Technology series

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

How Do You Select Reliability Tasks to Accomplish?

As reliability engineers, we have a large number of tools available.

From project planning, system modeling, data analysis, test planning, to risk identification and defect discovery, we have techniques, procedures, algorithms to help us identify and solve reliability problems.

We also may ways to apply an individual reliability task.

We could do an exploratory drop test to see what happens if anything. Or, we could conduct a full characterization study of the force signature of drops onto different surfaces and faces from a range of heights. Or something in-between.

We have options and thus need to make choices. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 7 Comments

Field Data Analysis First Look

Field data analysis starts with the collection of data.

In a previous article, we used a Nevada chart to gather the counts per month of field failure data. The chart also provides the necessary data to account for how many units have not failed as of yet.

The Nevada chart on its own is just a table of numbers and does not reveal patterns of the changing nature of failure rates over time. Are we experiencing early life failures or wear-out related failures?

We need to conduct some data analysis to learn what message the data contains. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Reliability Management & Risk

What is reliability management? Reliability Engineering? Would a product design or an organization benefit with a focus on reliability management and engineering? What is the value of a focus on reliability?

Any organization, that develops and produces products, has resource limits. It may be talent, capabilities, time, funding, or some combination of these.

Yet, the goal to create a product that meets customer expectations includes the concept of product reliability. The product should provide the expected functions over time, without failure. This expected product reliability occurs, even if the design requirements and advertising do not explicitly mention product reliability. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

10 Ways to Find Reliability Value

Most everyone agrees that improving a product or process reliability is a good thing. It’s good for customers, factories, and our business. And sometimes it’s difficult to answer the question,

‘What is the value of that reliability activity?’

What if your boss asks you what value you provide to the organization? Your answer may to harder to compose than you think.

How would you quantify your skills, experience, and knowledge and your role within the complex formal and informal working environments? [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

5 Steps to Building a Reliability Culture

Reliability is not the sole responsibility of the reliability engineer but results from nearly everyone in an organization making decisions that move toward the desired product reliability performance.

As a reliability professional, I often find it necessary to explore ways to leverage my knowledge of these areas to change the culture within an organization to create a sustainable program that achieves reliable products time and again. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Show me the Data

Early in my career, I worked for an unreasonable person.

He wanted us, his engineering staff, to show him the data. He wanted us to gather, monitor, analyze and display data regularly. Anytime we needed approval, funding, or resources he wanted to see the data. [Read more…]

by Kirk Gray 4 Comments

You May Often be Exceeding Operating Specifications!

HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) requires exceeding specifications

One aspect of HALT, (a test to find weaknesses and reliability risks empirically), is the difficulty for many engineers that are new to the HALT- that it guarantees that the maximum or recommended operating environmental specifications for the system and components under test will be exceeded, and failures beyond spec are potentially relevant to field reliability. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 4 Comments

The System Effectiveness Concept

Reliability is not the only concern when building a system.

Let’s consider a passenger car. Reliability refers to how often the car in the shop. How often we need to perform preventative or corrective maintenance. How often it fails. [Read more…]

by Kirk Gray Leave a Comment

Required Case History for Reliability Engineers

One for the (Reliability) Books

The GM Ignition switch failure case history should be required reading for all reliability engineers.

It is rare to have insight into any internal company history of serious electronic and electromechanical failures. Failure analysis and the causes of electronics or electromechanical systems failure can be a difficult investigation for any manufacturing company. Disclosure of the history and data is rarely if ever published due to the potential liability and litigation costs as well as loss of reputation for reliability and safety.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 2 Comments

The Environmental Test Manual

Let’s say you run across a lightweight, inexpensive, easy to manufacture metal that you are considering for a new bike frame. Beyond the functional considerations of strength, size, and finish options what else do you consider?

Is it durable? If it fails how does it fail (a shattering a bicycle frame would not be good, for example). You may also consider how the bicycle will be used and stored. What stress will the frame experience over its lifetime? [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Electronics Failure Analysis Done the Right Way

“Failures are gold”

Early in my career the engineering manager relished discovering equipment failure.

It didn’t matter if it was human, electronic, mechanical or software in nature, the glint in his eye soon gave way to a flood of possibilities. He enjoyed the process of investigating the fundamental reasons a failure occurred. [Read more…]

by Kirk Gray Leave a Comment

Eliminating early life failures

MTBF for electronics life entitlement measurements is a meaningless term. It says nothing about the distribution of failures or the cause of failures and is only valid for a constant failure rate, which almost never occurs in the real world. It is a term that should be eliminated along with reliability predictions of electronics systems with no moving parts. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 3 Comments

What Can One Reliability Engineer Do?

Lately, I’ve seen some evidence of reliability engineers giving up.

Throwing in the towel. Going with the flow. Not rocking the boat.

Is that our charter? To roll over and accept that we cannot make a difference?

No, it’s not. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 1 Comment

Getting Started Learning Reliability Engineering

Or, how to master the body of knowledge and be an effective reliability engineer.

Yes, there is a lot to know concerning reliability engineering. You should have a firm grasp of statistics, modeling, laboratory and experimental procedures, failure analysis skills, and more. [Read more…]

by Kirk Gray 2 Comments

Electronics Failure Prediction Methodology does not work

“When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.” ― Albert Einstein

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” – Niels Bohr* We have always had a quest to reduce future uncertainties and know what is going to happen to us, how long we will live, and what may impact our lives. Horoscopes, Tarot

[Read more…]