Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A drawing with blocks for each element of a system and connecting lines representing the series, parallel, and more complex relationships between elements. Statistically, an RBD contains the probability of success (reliability) information for each block. For a single point in time (e.g., the warranty period), the probability may be a single number. The probability of success could also be a reliability function based on distributions or nonparametric models. RBDs provides a structure to perform reliability allocation and are also useful to gather reliability measurements to estimate system reliability or to identify elements for improvement priority.
Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is an excellent foundation for Reliability Programs. It is also a stepping stone to build Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) models. Here lies the “beauty” of doing Reliability and Maintenance analysis. Whereby information from one analysis can help enhance another analysis.
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From the simplest to the most complex system, building and using a reliability model permits the entire team to make better decisions.
Understanding and monitoring system reliability involves knowing both:
We use system reliability models to identify weak links, and focus resources, to meet our desired reliability goals.
Being able to build the right model to meet your team’s needs best is one of your roles as a reliability professional. [Read more…]
First off, switches are not perfect, so this situation includes the reliability of the switch. Switch reliability may be a factor of storage time, probability of actually working when called on to work, or number of switching cycles. Each switch technology may be slightly different. For this equation, you need the reliability or probability of success given the primary unit has failed. Although we are assume the switch reliability is independent of the primary unit reliability and subsequent failure.
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First off, switches are not perfect, so this situation is hypothetical. Yet, when you are exploring adding standby redundancy and haven’t sorted out the switching mechanism, you may be purely curious about the benefits of the redundancy. [Read more…]
A reliability block diagram is a graphical and mathematical model of the elements of a system permitting the calculation of system reliability given the reliability of the elements.
The model reflects the reliability performance structure including series, parallel, standby and other arrangements of system elements.
Each block in an RBD represents a component or subsystem of the system. The organization and connecting lines represent the reliability structure of the system and may or may not be representative of the system’s functional block diagram. [Read more…]
When this posts I should be just getting home from Nepal (jet lag is no place to write posts). So, this post and the next couple are homework for you. Take a look, work the problem, solve it, then show your work. Comment with why you chose your response and why you didn’t select one of the others.
From question 19 of ASQ CRE 2009 sample exam. [Read more…]
The design of a product includes the arrangement of all of the product elements. When considering the reliability of a system, the arrangement matters. Many systems are arranged serially. This means that with the failure of any one element, the system will not work. See the article on Series Systems for more details. [Read more…]
Down to the last week of preparation for the exam on March 2nd. Good luck to all those signed up for that exam date. Time to focus on preparing your notes, organizing your references and doing a final run through of practice exams. [Read more…]
Let’s say we have two identical pumps share a load in parallel. The failure rate for a pump in this mode of operation is 0.0002 failures per hour. If one pump has to carry the full load alone, that pumps failure rate increases to 0.0009 failures per hour.
What is the reliability of the two pump system over a 168 hour week of operation? [Read more…]
Recently a colleague sent me a published copy of the first CRE exam. Scanning through the document suggests that a few things have changed and many have not changed at all. I often comment my enjoyment of the reliability engineering profession, as it doesn’t change too fast and even I can keep up. [Read more…]
A reliability block diagram (RBD) for a product that has no redundancy or complex use profile is often very simple. A series system (reliability wise) implies that any one part or element of the product that fails the entire product fails. One might ask if an RBD is even necessary. [Read more…]
During design and development, Reliability Engineers often receive reliability parameters in many forms. The most common reliability parameter is the mean time to failure (MTTF), which can also be specified as the failure rate (this is expressed as a frequency or Conditional Probability Density Function (PDF)) or the number of failures during a given period. [Read more…]
Speaking reliability-wise, parallel, means any of the elements in parallel structure permit the system to function. This does not mean they are physically parallel (in all cases), as capacitors in parallel provide a specific behavior in the circuit and if one capacitor fails that system might fail.
In this simple drawing, there are n components in parallel and any one component is needed for the system to function. [Read more…]
Each piece of gear used in rock climbing has the potential to be the weakest link. Often, based on accident reports, it the human decisions or lack of focus that is the most difficult to improve.
Ropes, anchors, harness, and carabiners and another equipment all have to work in the event of a fall. The design of each piece of equipment is to meet and hopefully exceed any possible load. And, to maintain the needed strength over years of harsh outdoor use. [Read more…]