Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Find all articles across all article series listed in reverse chronological order.
Fault tolerance is a system that is reliant to the failure of elements within the system. It also may be called a fail safe design.
A fault tolerant system may continue to operate just fine, after one of the power supplies fails, for example. Or it may operate in a reduced or degraded state.
Other systems may have a ‘limp home’ condition, allowing the system to save critical data or allowing you to drive to a safe place to change a flat tire. [Read more…]
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable values related to essential business objectives.
A KPI provides a means to monitor the performance of a specific function.
In larger organizations, with sales & marketing, research & development, operations, supply chain and other teams working to bring products to market, each department has a specific role. [Read more…]
Concurrent engineering is a common approach that pairs the development of the product design and it’s supporting manufacturing processes through the development process.
Design engineers may require the creation of new manufacturing processes to achieve specific material properties, component performance, or mechanical, electrical or software tolerances. [Read more…]
Let’s discuss the Arrhenius model. One thing you didn’t know about is that you may already be an expert in it. How could that be you ask? You have probably used it many times at home. [Read more…]
Traditional electronics reliability engineering began during the period of infancy in solid state electronic hardware. The first comprehensive guide to Failure Prediction Methodology (FPM) premiered in 1956 with the publication of the RCA release TR-1100: “Reliability Stress Analysis for Electronic Equipment” presented models for computing rates of component failures. “RADC Reliability Notebook” emerged later in 1959, followed by the publication of a military handbook know as that addressed reliability prediction known as Military Handbook for [Read more…]
A product or system’s actual reliability performance is a function of the design, assembly, and use.
Decisions made during design predominately create the inherent reliability capability performance.
The selected components, manufacturing, transportation and installation all can add variability and errors to the product, often reducing the actual reliability performance.
The use conditions and maintenance add another layer of variability, again reducing reliability capability. [Read more…]
Next week is RAMS – the Reliability and Maintainability Symposium. A multitrack 3.5-day conference with classes, tutorials, paper sessions, a small trade show, plus many of you – peers, colleagues, and friends in the reliability world.
The conference is hosted by 9 professional societies and organized by a group of about 50 or so volunteers from those societies (I was an active member of the RAMS management committee for many years). [Read more…]
System engineering is a superset of the other engineering fields (mechanical, civil, electrical, software, etc.) as the system engineers work to bring all the various elements of a system together into a final and cohesive whole. [Read more…]
None, actually.
Or, one really good reliability engineering professional.
Or, an entire staff of highly talented reliability engineers.
The number of reliability engineers on staff really doesn’t matter. The outcome of your product and system reliability is not contingent on headcount or office space or list of degrees. [Read more…]
In all aspects of engineering we only make improvements and innovation in technology by building on previous knowledge. Yet in the field of reliability engineering (and in particular electronics assemblies and systems), sharing the knowledge about field failures of electronics hardware and the true root causes is extremely limited. Without the ability to share data and teach what we know about the real causes of “un-reliability” in the field, it is more easily understood why the belief in the ability able to model and predict the future of electronics life and MTBF continue to dominate the field of electronics reliability
This is the first annual survey to find what you recommend for those preparing for the ASQ CRE exam.
See the full list of reliability references for the CRE exam, for reliability and maintenance engineers at Accendo Reliability. [Read more…]
One way to capture and disseminate reliability engineering related information and advice is through internal documents. This of course only works if they are both useful and used.
Focus on gathering and providing essential and meaningful information that will improve the reliability of your product. Another element that makes these design guidelines valuable is if they save time. Engineers love to save time. [Read more…]
The software element of products continues to grow.
Likewise, the number of field failures due to software issues continues to grow. Writing code is relatively straight forward, and some may even say it’s fun.
The process of debugging, or finding and fixing software defects, is not fun. [Read more…]
When we go to an automobile race such as the Indianapolis 500, watching those cars circle the track can get fairly boring. What is secretly unspoken is that everyone observing the race is watching for a race car to find and sometimes exceed a limit, finding a discontinuity. The limit could be how fast he enters a curve before the acceleration forces exceed the tires coefficient of friction, or how close to the racetrack wall, he can be before he contacts it and spins out of control. Using the race analogy, [Read more…]
Just asking a customer how reliable they want your product often provokes an honest answer. The customer, and you most likely, do not want any failures.
Failures are troublesome or in some cases dangerous.
You and your customers realize that not every unit produced will operate over a long and useful life. There is some chance that something will fail. The definition of ‘some’ is often vague. [Read more…]