Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A series of experiments to determine whether an item will successfully function within the range of expected or specified environmental conditions, such as temperature exposure, salt fog exposure, fungus growth, or insect infestation.
I may have the name, waterfall, used incorrectly here.
Years ago I learned from a former Apple reliability group manager how to organize reliability and environmental related testing where samples cascade through a sequence of stress conditions and evaluations. He called it waterfall testing. [Read more…]
You cannot test in reliability any more than you can test in quality. Often reliability testing is done though, and knowing the range of testing approaches and their associated results will help you get the most information from each test conducted.
Let’s explore the types of testing that generate information useful as you develop a reliable product. There are 4 different types of reliability testing:
Within each type there are many variations to the testing details and the specific results generated. Understanding the questions each type of testing has the capability to resolve is a good first step to implementing the right set of tests for your project. [Read more…]
How well can you describe the use conditions your product will experience?
How well do you need to know the use conditions?
For some situations, the environment for your product is assessable, others are not. For some situations, we guess the range of expected stresses, others we measure.
The design process and the myriad decisions that impact product reliability rely on characterized environmental stresses.
A great place to consolidate how and where customers will use your product (including the relevant stress factors) is in an environmental manual. [Read more…]