Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
One way to create a robust product or system is to consider all the stresses and design to withstand those stresses. We often do not know all the stresses, magnitudes, and ranges of variation. We know that many materials degrade with time, yet we do not know precisely how much or how fast. We also do not know what new stresses may arise or how stresses will change over time.
We often use the term ‘system reliability modelling’ to describe any scenario where we need to somehow convert what we know about component reliability into system reliability in order to make a decision. Some of us might have heard of ‘series systems’ that have no redundant components, meaning that the system fails when any component fails. Then there are ‘parallel systems’ where the system fails when the last component fails. But then there are ‘K out of N’ systems that need ‘K’ components out of a total of ‘N’ components to work for the system to work. Do you know when ‘K out of N’ system reliability looks like series system reliability? … or parallel system reliability? … or perhaps you don’t know what series or parallel system reliability looks like? Then this webinar is for you.
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Within an organization or a team, we collectively know a lot. We, again collectively, have a wealth of information. And, if you follow my Mom’s advice, we learn something new every day. We also forget a lot every day. When we forget something that we learned by making a mistake or error (learning the hard way), we are prone to repeat that mistake or error. [Read more…]
We’ve evangelized for more than 20 years that the future of quality and its related disciplines, including reliability, will be risk-focused. Why? We’re living in a time of uncertainty and risk. Understanding and managing risk is important for quality and reliability professionals solving tough problems and making hard decisions. [Read more…]
Some of us might have heard of the Weibull distribution. Some of us might have heard about Weibull analysis. Weibull analysis uses the Weibull distribution to help us visualize failure data in a really useful way. We can ‘see’ if our product is wearing out. We can see if our product is wearing in. We can estimate how many things will have failed by certain times. We can do all manners of other wonderful ‘reliability engineering’ things through Weibull Analysis. But then there is ‘WeiBayes Analysis.’ It combines Weibull and Bayesian analysis (… I know that doesn’t mean much to most people). It can be really useful if we know ‘how’ something we are testing fails. Because if we do, then we can essentially feed a certain parameter into the analysis to help it on its way. This means that we don’t need as much data (always a good thing in reliability engineering). But there are quite a few catches. Interested in learning about Weibayes analysis? Join us for this webinar.
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It’s rare to have sufficient samples for all the desired reliability work. It’s common to have very few samples. So, how does one manage to learn what is necessary to learn from the few samples? How can you maximize the value of reliability work in the scant sample situation? [Read more…]
Risk-based auditing (RBA) is all about risk management. Risk-based auditing is simply risk transfer from the auditee to the auditor.
In today’s uncertain world, the lens for most, if not all, problem-solving and decision-making is risk. Risk-based auditing is a must-have tool for all quality and reliability professionals. ALL ISO management systems require RBA, whether 1st, 2nd, or 3rd party audits. [Read more…]
I recently received a question about the artwork found at Accendo Reliability. “Why castles?” So, I provided an answer and thought I would share it in this webinar. Also, let’s talk about how and why Accendo Reliability got started and how it’s been doing over the past ten years. [Read more…]
Greg is an opportunist. Greg wrote 4 best selling books on ISO 9001 in the 1990’s (John Wiley).
Greg now believes that ISO 42001 will be 10 X bigger than ISO 9001. Find out why? ISO 42001 is the new (FDIS) management system standard. Learn how to reposition your work/career/job for this new opportunity. [Read more…]
Many reliability engineers know what fatigue is (in addition to feeling tired). Fatigue is an example of a ‘failure mechanism.’ A failure mechanism is the physical, chemical or electrical process that results in failure. Fatigue is interesting in that it allows something to fail without it ever being exposed to stresses that are beyond its strength. How does this happen? Fatigue is based on cracks. Cracks magnify stresses at their tips. So cycling stresses can have the effect of incrementally (and sometimes very slowly) increasing the crack length at the tip. Fatigue has caused all manners of failures that have surprised us throughout the history of engineering. But now we have learned so much more about this really fascinating failure mechanism can cause steel, aluminium and other material to fail, even when the stresses they experience are tiny. Want to learn more about fatigue? And how you can help prevent it? Join us for this webinar.
We do not “do reliability”. “Reliability” doesn’t just happen to a product – well, it does with or without our intervention. To achieve the stated reliability objectives for a new product or production line, we can trust to luck or sort out what needs to happen to realize the objectives. [Read more…]
We often use the word ‘quality’ to describe products that are manufactured with minimal defects (… and within tolerances). If you are involved in the field of quality (and manufacturing), then you might have heard of ‘capability indices.’ These are simple numbers that essentially describe the ‘quality’ of things being manufactured. There are certain guidelines and industry ‘standards’ for what these numbers should be. Have you ever heard of the ‘6 sigma’? It promotes a capability index of two (2). But what does this mean? These numbers also correspond with the fraction of defective products. Want to learn what these capability indices mean? … and how to get them? … and how to convert them to things like Parts Per Million (PPM) defects? Or better yet … if you need to learn a bit more about manufacturing and how we measure quality in general? Join us for this webinar.
During the interview, I turned down a job when I learned the hiring manager expected me, a potential new reliability engineer on the team, to only conduct tests. Creating and assembling a reliable product or service takes more than testing. [Read more…]
Understanding context is essential for making smart, risk-based decisions and solving tough problems.
Understanding context is important to ensure you are correctly solving the right problem. Understanding context helps you understand the root cause of the problem and the key stakeholders. It helps you develop effective solutions. It helps you define your assumptions and biases. [Read more…]
Ever heard of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)? It is a wonderful activity that can do amazing things for … what? It depends on what you might have heard or what you are used to. Why? Because there are several different FMEAs that do different things for … different things. A Design FMEA can help us prevent really basic, simple flaws in a new product. A Process FMEA can help us prevent really basic, simple flaws in a new process. What process? Any process … but typically manufacturing. Many people who have heard of FMEAs usually associate them with either design or processes. Then, there are System and Software FMEAs. Want to get an overview of which FMEAs do what and when you would use one instead of the other? Join us for this webinar.