Jon Elerath, Consultant, Elerath Reliability Consulting

Fred Schenkelberg interview Jon about his career and consulting.

[Note: This is a bonus episode recorded at RAMS 2016 in Tucson, AZ. Fred invited thought leaders to join him for a quick interview, thus please pardon the sounds of the conference in the background.]

Just like many other Reliability consultants, Jon has a breadth of experiences in the use of reliability techniques, such as FMEA, predictions and reliability testing.

Unlike most others, he has several strengths that are not as common.

System Modeling
- Reliability without repair
- Reliability with repair
- Availability
Model analysis
- Reliability block diagrams
- Markov models
- Sequential Monte Carlo simulations
- Fault trees
Field data analysis
- Develop the data collection process
- Data with non-constant failure rates

Jon uses statistical fundamentals for all my work but always provides a practical application as simply as possible. He understands the basis for modeling and knows why one type of model is better than another for a specific case.

In his role as manager, he has created many reliability program plans; in his role as an individual contributor, he has created component/assembly reliability test plans.

While steeped in reliability theory, he is very hands-on.

He personally developed a reliability laboratory for testing plasm-etch subsystems and components; assembled a data storage system for Ongoing Reliability Tests (ORT) with over 1600 HDDs; and has attached accelerometers to solar trackers during a light snow in China.

In this episode, Jon discusses: