Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
The set of environmental factors and range (or distribution) of values during manufacturing, shipping, storage, and use applying (or expected to apply) to an item. This includes factors such as weather (e.g.,temperature, humidity, and wind) and usage (e.g., frequency, human interaction, misuse). Often includes details concerning potential sources of stress(es) on an item. A range provides boundaries for the expected stress, whereas a distribution enables advanced forms of stress analysis.
Mission profiles are fundamental to any reliability prediction being valid. Without clearly defined environmental and use profiles there will be a long chain of inaccuracy that accumulates into significant errors within a product. 
This is what occurs at the following stages, or tools, if the mission profile or environment profile changes after its completion. [Read more…]
Did you shake a wrapped gift as a child?
Sometimes the rattling sound may indicate the hidden contents. A sweater from Grandma would make a muffled sound, while a new Lego set would rustle the many parts.
Your customers may not shake the package to guess its contents, yet your product will experience vibration and shock.
The environments of assembly, transpiration, use, maintenance, etc all include shock and vibration inputs to your product. The operation of your product may include producing vibration and shock loading across the product.
Understanding the basics of vibration and shock will assist you to design your product to operate as expected in the noisy, shaky world.
The rattling about your product experiences is just one of the many environmental and use factors. [Read more…]
The definition of reliability includes four elements.
One of them is the intended environment where the device or system will experience a range of stresses.
The knowledge of where and how an item will operate enables: