Articles

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

General Human Factors Design Principles

People build, transport, use, maintain and dispose of equipment or products.

Thus the creation of these items should include consideration of the humans involved. In order to fully benefit from the functional capability of an item or system, we, as humans, have to interact with an item’s interface, displays, sounds, etc.

Whether a smartphone or bottling machine, the ability to provide commands or direction, the ability to recognize and understand responses, and the ability to correctly identify faults or outputs all combine to permit humans to place calls or fill juice bottles.

It is in the design stage that the elements of a piece of equipment (hardware or software) thwart or enable efficient human interaction. [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 Leave a Comment

Comparing Human and Machine Capability

In 1968 NASA explored where machines and humans would best achieve tasks primarily during space missions. Many of the findings are true today, and in some areas, the differences are blurring.

Machines created by humans continue to improve and take on complex tasks, that once only humans could do. For example, parking a car, now a feature of newer car models. Autonomous driving is happening and continuing to improve. The ability to reason, to foresee and evaluate risks, once thought to be strictly in the domain of human capability is now being done by machines. [Read more…]

by James Kovacevic 2 Comments

What Can You Do to Improve Reliability?

Part 5 of 5

A Question & Answer Period with Fred Schenkelberg on the what can be done to improve the reliability of your operation.

So far in this series, we have had the opportunity to discuss the role of reliability engineering in today’s maintenance environments. In this final post of the series, I (James) had the opportunity to ask Fred Schenkelberg some questions related to this very topic. Fred, with his years of experience, was able to provide some great insights to the role of reliability engineering, and what those in the maintenance department can do to improve reliability. [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 6 Comments

Two Birds with One Stone

Just back from a trip to Patagonia and catching up with emails and writing this morning. Posting an article for this list is due today along with a touch of travel weariness, decided to share a part of a question received concerning data analysis.

My thought is to post an actual question one of our peers is facing, and meet the deadline for this post. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Life Cycle Costs

How building reliability into the equipment design will dramatically improve your profitability.

Part 4 of 5

Does your team procure, setup and put into operation equipment with a single focus on reducing the initial capital expenditure?

Do you work with your equipment suppliers to fully specify the equipment’s functions, performance, and reliability? Maybe not the reliability? [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…]

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

Where Does Maintenance Fit Into Reliability?

Maintenance Provides the Key Function of Preserving

Part 3 of 5

With the design FMEA complete, the equipment should have high inherent reliability. The equipment can then be installed in the plant, and provide a high level of performance to the business, at least initially. This is where Maintenance comes in. Maintenance can enable a low Life Cycle Cost, by preserving the reliability of the equipment. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Human Factor Considerations

If a human is going to build, install, monitor, use, operate, repair, or dismantle, then the design team must consider human factors.

According to Wikipedia

Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.

[Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg 4 Comments

Getting Started as a New Reliability Engineer

You may have been tapped one morning and given the assignment. You may have pursued the role either via a university program or by simply applying for the position.

Now what? How do you start in this role? What are you expected to do? [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

Using a Design FMEA

How building reliability into the equipment design will dramatically improve your profitability.

Part 2 of 5

Products and equipment start with a design. The functions and performance occur or do not occur according to the capabilities designed into the system.

I learned early in my career, as a manufacturing engineer, that some products were much easier to manufacture (less yield loss) than others, and it was often the design of the product that made the difference. [Read more…]

by Fred Schenkelberg Leave a Comment

The Downside of a Fault Tolerant System

Maintaining high reliability or availability is a marked advantage for any system. A system that achieves the ability to avoid system downtime due to a single failure event, is essential in many applications. Yet, the fault tolerant capability comes at a price.

A system that achieves the ability to avoid system downtime due to a single failure event, is essential in many applications. Yet, the fault tolerant capability comes at a price.

Here is a short list and brief description of fault tolerant design disadvantages:

Masking or obscuring low-level failures

The nature of a fault tolerance design is to continue to operate normally even with a component failure.

Thus if the ability to detect a component failure relies on a loss of function or capability, it may be difficult to detect the failure. This sets the stage for a second component failure to cause a system downing event. [Read more…]