Why Set a Reliability Goal

Abstract

Chris and Fred discuss the importance of (trying to) set a reliability goal. Simple … right?

Key Points

Join Chris and Fred as they discuss reliability goal setting. How do we do them? What makes good ones? How do we not set bad ones?

Topics include:

• Intents and catchphrases are not goals. ‘We have a five-year warranty!’ Great … what is the five-year reliability goal to support this warranty period? ‘It should last 20 years!’ Cool … not all will, so how many can fail over twenty years if this is indeed cool. ‘It should not fail for our customer in the first two years of operations.’ Magnificent … but which customer? … are they on a boat? … is the product being delivered by a third-party courier who has no idea what is in the box? … don’t even know why this is a problem?
• The ‘quality’ or ‘validation and verification’ team is not in charge. We have come across plenty of organizations where the ‘testing team’ has said that if you can’t test it, it can’t be a requirement. Wrong. Testing is not the only way to measure something. Real example … a ‘quality control team’ in a company successfully had the requirement ‘device must be easy to use’ removed from the specifications because it could not be tested.
• Effort is often mistaken as outcomes. Sometimes writing down things feels good. Having reliability goals and objectives in some document somewhere might make a board of directors feel good. But what happens when no one in the organization is aware of these goals? … or if they are aware – care about those goals.
• Goals need to matter, challenge designers, be feasible, and have personal ramifications when they aren’t met. So this means you need to really focus on getting this right. Some organizations say ‘we are success-orientated’ as a shield against looking for and focusing on how their products fail. Every product will fail. There are ‘failure-orientated’ organizations and ‘success-DISorientated organizations.’

Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.

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Show Notes

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