Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
Beyond the part reliability specification, you may also add conditions or requests to your reliability specification for your supplier.
The communication with your supplier should include sufficient information that they fully understand your reliability performance expectations. When buying or contracting with a supplier, you are the customer.
Be clear about your reliability requirements including constraints and conditions. [Read more…]
Unless you are working with raw materials directly, you rely on your suppliers to provide reliable parts.
Do you suppliers know your reliability objectives for the parts they supply?
If you didn’t tell them, they probably do not know. If you did tell them, did you make it the reliability specification clear and understandable?
As with any specification, clear communication is essential. Guessing or assuming both parties know and have the same reliability goals is, well, not a good practice. The ability of a supplier to build and deliver the parts that meet all your specification has to include a clear and understandable reliability specification.
There is a range of common reliability specifications in use, some are better than others. Let’s start with a brief review of reliability specification types.
Then briefly outline how you establish the reliability specifications for each supplied component. [Read more…]
In many parts of the world ‘caveat emptor’ [let the buyer beware] no longer applies.
The producer and distributors of products are liable for their products.
This extends beyond product failures and a warranty claim. Today the company is liable for to make right any loss or damage incurred by the use of the product.
Courts and laws around the world reflect the protection of users of products from adverse consequences due to a negligent design and assembly practices.
The producer of a product must consider the user’s safety and provide reasonable safeguards.
This applies even when the user misuses or abuses a product. [Read more…]
The reliability goal is a key element across the entire product lifecycle. From product definition to determining warranty to judging performance, knowing the goal in clear terms sets the stage for a successful product.
Reliability in engineering terms is the probability of satisfactory product performance within a defined environment over a stated duration. [Read more…]