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Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.

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Death of a Reliability Engineer

Death of a Reliability Engineer

(Reproduced from the article “Death of a Reliability Engineer” by Dev Raheja, Reliability Review, Vol. 30, March 2010 with permission)

When I first wrote the article in March 1990, I implied an ‘F’ grade to reliability engineers. Now almost 20 years later, I would give them a “E’. Yes, there is a little improvement but nothing you can write to your mother about.

The MTBF cancer was wide spread and is still wide spread in the DoD. The only reason I upgraded the reliability engineer from F to E is because the MTBF in some industries is no longer used such as in the automotive industry. They use the failure rates instead to hide their shame.

Failure rate is just the reciprocal of MTBF. Good job! Same old corn flakes with a new product name! [Read more…]

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Stepping Stones in the Lean Journey

Stepping Stones in the Lean Journey

Guest Post by Joseph Paris (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

As very young children, we had an instinctive need to be very close to our parents – feeling a great deal of anxiety, even a sense of abandonment, if they were not within our sight.  As we grew older – and whether it was geographically, intellectually, or psychologically – we would become more comfortable with greater distances from what we felt were our basic truths, but almost always as stepping stones and rarely great leaps. 

Think of early commanders of sailing ships always keeping sight of land until traveling ever greater distances was more predictable because of maps and navigation techniques and tools. [Read more…]

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Discussing the Controversial Subject of FMEA Prepopulation

Discussing the Controversial Subject of FMEA Prepopulation

To Prepopulate or not to prepopulate, that is the question

By prepopulating the highest priority functions, along with other selected information, the FMEA team can focus their efforts on the most important functions, and minimize in-meeting time. This is the last step in FMEA preparation. However, there are specific limitations to FMEA prepopulation that must be understood and adhered to.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln

[Read more…]

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MSA 3 – Gage Bias

MSA 3 – Gage Bias

Introduction

In my prior article, Measurement Systems, the total variation in the measurement data was partitioned into part variation (PV), assessor variation (AV), and equipment variation (EV). GR&R is the square root of the sum of the squares of AV and EV. If the ratio of GRR/TV is less than 10%, then the measurement system variation was acceptable.

In addition to variation, data bias needs to be considered. This bias is created by systematic measurement errors.
[Read more…]

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Doing Nothing is Stressful

Doing Nothing is Stressful

I was recently giving a presentation for IEEE at MIT Lincoln Labs here in the Boston area.  The topic was one of my favorites, my new playground, Use Case 7 !  The crowd loved the idea of expanding how we access use cases and came up with great examples. and experiences, of their own.  They found many areas in their work where the Use Case 7 exercise may yield some interesting insight.

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QFD

QFD

The QFD concept is widely known, yet appears to be used infrequently. Too time consuming for the value, but it is a “good idea.” There are several schools of thought, and certainly practical approaches for implementation that can provide needed business solutions. This video introduces the topic. If you want help with implementation, or with training – contact us to obtain the break throughs available. [Read more…]

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Resilience & Enterprise Risk Management

Resilience & Enterprise Risk Management

Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

The term resilience is used in reports and studies by numerous government agencies and international institutions.  For instance, in 20014 the Organization forEconomic Cooperation and Development issued a report entitled “OECD Reviews ofRisk Management Policies: Boosting Resilience Through Innovative Risk Governance”. [Read more…]

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Building a Frequency Table

Building a Frequency Table

In a meeting the other day, the presenter was talking about a range of different failures for the product in question. She talked about each issue, a bit about the failure analysis, yet didn’t reveal which failures occurred more or less often.

She did provide a handout with a listing of the problems in order of the product field age and listing of the failure name (component or system involved). So, I grabbed a piece of paper to create a frequency table so I could quickly determine which problems occurred more often than others. [Read more…]

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Insights into Preventive Maintenance Made Simple with Doug Stangier

I recently had the pleasure to interview Doug Stangier, co-author of Preventive Maintenance Made Simple.  This is another excellent book in the Made Simple series, published by ReliabilityWeb.  During the interview, Doug not only provides insights into his book but also into what world class Preventive Maintenance looks like.   Anyone new to maintenance and reliability, or seasoned experts can benefit from this great book.  Without further delay, here is the interview with Doug.

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Calculating Network Reliability

Calculating Network Reliability

I have worked in the field of reliability for a good many years.  I have presented both beginner and advanced reliability engineering courses. I have even read several books. 🙂 But, across all this, component redundancy has never been explained beyond simple serial and parallel configurations.

So, it was a shock to my system to be presented with a scenario that couldn’t be solved using a simple parallel system.

My previous work had challenged me only as far as:

  • Serial
  • Active parallel
  • Stand-by parallel
  • M-out-of-n parallel
  • Keystone-component parallel

But now I was being challenged by a network that was none of these.

[Read more…]

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Integrating ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management Throughout the Organization

Integrating ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management Throughout the Organization

Guest Post by Robert Pojasek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In 2012, ISO’s ‘Joint Technical Coordinating Group’ (JTCG) completed work to provide a high-level structure, text, and common terms and definitions for all future and revised management system standards. All Technical Committees developing management system standards were required to follow Annex SL found in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Annex SL[i].   

As we approach 2019, it is abundantly clear that the high-level structure mandate has been followed by the Technical Committees with mixed results. All the new and revised management systems used the 10-clause structure and all of them include the same definition of risk and risk management.  However, the way risk management was used in the different management system standards varied considerably. What can an organization learn from this exercise? [Read more…]

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Fundamentals of Applying a Structured Approach

Fundamentals of Applying a Structured Approach

In reviewing several previous articles in this article series, it’s apparent there is much in common with product development, project management and process improvement.

Let’s look at a brief list that considers a structured approach vs. unstructured

While this list is pretty “high-level” it reveals the importance of project leadership, governance and management.  A structured approach (for example a phase-gate structure, DMAIC or agile/scrum) enables management and planning, which enables governance and governance enables leadership.

Some structured approaches may be more suitable than others depending on the type of project.  However, any structure (with leadership, governance and management in mind) is probably better than none.