What is the Weibull Distribution?

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

Whether new to reliability or a veteran, you have probably heard about the Weibull distribution. It has almost mythical status amongst those who conduct reliability data analysis … or in other words – turning a jumble of dots (data points) into information that actually means something. So why do we ‘worship’ the Weibull distribution? What is so special about it? Whether you have been doing this for a long time or five minutes, you will get something out of this webinar that looks at one of the most popular tools for reliability analysis.
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Focus on Failure Mechanisms

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

In my opinion, as I do not know if this is true or not, every product or system failure has a cause. Causes are not exactly the same as what we call ‘failure mechanisms’, yet they are related in many cases. One more term to consider is ‘failure mode’, which refers to the symptoms or results of a failure. [Read more…]

What is a ‘Fault Tree’?

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

If you have spent any time doing reliability engineering stuff, you will probably have heard of this thing called a ‘fault tree.’ You may have even used fault trees a lot. But it is amazing how many different reliability engineers have different ideas about how to use a fault tree best. Some think fault trees are strictly used to work out which combinations of components need to fail for the system to fail (system reliability modeling). Others think fault trees are really useful for helping us work out what the causes of failure are (root cause analysis). Both people are right. So why do we get these competing schools of thought? Join us for this webinar to learn more about how fault trees can help you … regardless of what you are trying to achieve.
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Being a Great Reliability Engineer

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

What is it that makes the difference between good and great related to reliability engineers? What is the magic element that separates those who can carry out tasks such as facilitating an FMEA or designing and analyzing an ALT from those who impact an organization’s culture? A good impact that improves the organization’s ability to create reliable products.

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What do you see in a ‘Probability’ Plot?

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

Some of you might have heard about probability plots … like Weibull plots. Some of you might not. A Weibull plot is a really useful way of quickly ‘looking’ at data and being able to ‘see’ really useful things. This could be seeing that a system’s failure rate is decreasing over time … which usually means there are manufacturing defects. It could be seeing that the rate of failure of a system is increasing over time … which means the system is accumulating damage or wearing out. And lots of other things. So, let’s look at a different sort of ‘probability’ plot … and see what we can work out from it. And that means working out what we need to do to improve reliability. Join this webinar if you want to learn how to see really useful things in lines that you might not have appreciated in the past.
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Practical Measurement Systems Analysis for Design – Work Smarter

podcast episode with speaker Rob Schubert

Gage R&R – this is mainly a quality tool, where 10% is a pass and 10-30% is “marginal.” What does that mean, or even better yet, how can I use gage R&R to provide meaningful results in a design environment without specifications? In 30 minutes, we will discuss how you can calculate Gage discrimination – the more useful result for a design situation, and even how to use it for destructive reliability tests.
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Confidence in Reliability

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

Reliability is a measure of your product or system. Confidence is a measure of you. But we often forget this. We often subject our new product, system, or service to test after test until it reaches this thing called ‘required statistical confidence.’ But this is often an illusion, which is great! Because if statistical confidence is often not ‘real’ confidence, then we don’t always have to resort to statistics to get confidence. In fact, those of us who exclusively rely on statistics are usually those who lack confidence in the product, system or service and need a security blanket to make them feel OK. This webinar talks about confidence from the perspective of the ‘process owner.’ The design team lead. The CTO. The junior engineer. And how you can get a much healthier version of confidence through the way we design and produce our ‘things’ so that when it comes time to test … we are (justifiably) supremely confident that we will absolutely dominate whatever statistical testing hurdle can be thrown our way. And this sometimes means we don’t need to deal with statistics at all!
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Reliability and Maintenance

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

Both reliability and maintenance activities work to reduce failures and downtime. Perfect reliability of a system would eliminate the need for maintenance. Perfect maintenance would keep even poorly designed (reliability-wise) operating.

Together, the work of reliability and maintenance professionals can achieve more than each team working separately. Each brings a set of insights and skills to the conversation. Working together means improving the design of a system so it’s easier to maintain. It also means the maintenance teams’ day-to-day observations provide meaningful information to the reliability team.

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Basic Mathematical Symbols and Stuff

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

OK … we have all been there. We have all sat in some statistical presentation or read a document containing mathematical symbols and statistical hieroglyphics we don’t understand. And we pretend we do understand so that we don’t embarrass ourselves. The people we don’t want to embarrass ourselves in front of usually also pretend to understand those symbols and hieroglyphics. This webinar is a light (re)introduction to common mathematical symbols used in many engineering scenarios … including reliability. [Read more…]

Risk Decision Making, Frameworks, and Assessments

podcast episode with speaker Greg Hutchins

Disruption has been one of the major news items in 2022. Disruption results in risk. You can see ‘risk’ in almost every video, magazine, and blog. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Supply chain disruption. Climate change. New business models. Reshoring. Inflation. Price of gasoline. Can you imagine $10/gallon gasoline?

Greg will answer the following:

What is risk-based, problem-solving, and decision-making in reliability engineering and quality?

What are risk PDCA, taxonomies, risk assessment, risk management, etc?

What are the two critical risk management frameworks for problem-solving and decision-making?

What are examples of risk assessment tools? [Read more…]

How to Take the Guess Work out of Expert Judgment

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

Most humans can be quite technically minded. And sometimes we aren’t. Sometimes, we expect every drug or medical procedure to be checked, approved, validated, and tested on other people (et cetera) before subjecting ourselves to whatever our doctor suggests. At other times, we spend lots of money at casinos (note that I said ‘spend’ and not ‘invest’ or ‘win’). When it comes to reliability, we can sometimes be too technically minded. A reliability ‘number’ might not exist until our product has undergone exhaustive testing. Which can often be two years too late to do anything about if it turns out it doesn’t meet all our reliability dreams. So what can we do? Well … why spend money trying to generate information (through lengthy tests) when you can use the information stored in everyone’s brain? The most common answer (even if we don’t want to admit it) is that this sounds like guesswork. And guesswork can sound unprofessional. Or it’s just wrong. But there are ways you can suck out information from a group of experts in a quantifiable and remarkably accurate way. Want to learn more? This webinar introduces you to some of the concepts that might interest you.
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How to Check a Regression Fit

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

When fitting a line or curve to data, it’s a model. When modeling, it is worth remembering the George Box quote, “Essentially all models are wrong, but some are useful.” Yet, how do we separate a useful model from one that isn’t useful? One step in finding a helpful regression model is to consider the residuals. BTW: Weibull analysis is another term for regression analysis. [Read more…]

What is Reliability Growth?

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

Sounds simple, right? And it is. Reliability growth literally refers to a process where we improve the reliability of a product, system, or service. But sometimes we find ourselves in situations where it is expected that not only do we understand reliability growth … but measure it. And predict how much it will grow in the future. This is sometimes called Reliability Growth Testing (RGT), Reliability Growth Planning (RGP), or Reliability Growth Prediction. And there are lots of equations and models for all these things. But do these models actually model the ‘real world?’ … can they work for you? … SHOULD they work for you? This webinar introduces you to the topic of reliability growth (both qualitative and quantitative) along with key concepts (like the Duane Failure Pattern) to help you work out if there is (or is not) a place for reliability growth in your organization.
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Reliability and Safety

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

Is a reliable product safer? Are the safety elements of a product or system independent of its reliability performance? These and other questions speak to the complex relationship between reliability and safety.

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What is Process Capability Analysis (PCA)?

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

A ‘capable’ process is a really weak term for what we are dealing with here. In short, a process is considered ‘capable’ if it creates products that, in spite of all the unavoidable natural variation in production, still fall within the boundaries of what ‘good’ looks like. Perhaps instead of ‘capable’, we should say ‘amazing’! A ‘capable’ process will essentially create products that have a very, very small chance of being defective. So how do we get here? SPC can help. But how do we measure how ‘capable’ our process is? And can we use this measurement to (for example) work out how many Parts Per Million (PPM) defects you are likely to get? This webinar introduces you to the concept of process capability, including well-known indices like CPK, along with what this means for your process. [Read more…]