Speaking Of Reliability: Friends Discussing Reliability Engineering Topics | Warranty | Plant Maintenance

Keeping up with Reliability Tools Abstract Carl and Fred discussing a listener summitted question: When one’s job is focused on a single area of reliability, how does one keep up with advancements ones own area, as well as the entire field of reliability engineering? Key Points Join Carl and Fred as they discuss the length and breadth of reliability engineering tools and methods, and strategies to keep pace with advancements and applications in the broader field of reliability. Topics include: The role of reliability certifications Importance of keeping pace with the broad set of reliability tools, in addition to specializing in one or two tools Reliability tool box: a means of achieving reliability objectives Minimum: awareness of why each tool is used and when it is needed One single tool is not sufficient Select one or two reliability tools for specialization, based on personal interests, skills, and career opportunities Understanding the length and breadth of reliability tools support reliability programs, and helps you know when to pull in other expertise Always know why a tool is used If you only specialize in one tool, you may bias towards that tool Knowing how tools interconnect is important Strategies to keep pace with reliability tools and advancements Why RCM experts need to be aware of DfR tools and vice versa Attend classes, symposiums, both in and out of your area of expertise Deliberately do professional development Use the full range of resources on Accendo Reliability 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes As mentioned during the podcast, Accendo Reliability has a wide range of resources that help reliability practitioners learn about the full range of reliability tools: books, webinars, articles, podcasts, and more. The post SOR 665 Keeping up with Reliability Tools appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

The Words We Use Matter Abstract Chris and Fred discuss the different words we often use (and misuse) in reliability engineering. ‘Reliability’ has been used for hundreds of years to describe different concepts of ruggedness, robustness, strength, timeliness, trustworthiness and so on. But – reliability has a specific definition within reliability engineering. There are plenty of other examples of how words we use in reliability engineering can have multiple meanings – even when we think they don’t! Key Points Join Chris and Fred as they discuss the different words and terms we use in reliability engineering. And both Chris and Fred have wasted precious hours of their lives watching people debate fruitlessly over what the terms ‘MTBF,’ ‘failure-free period’ and ‘failure mode’ mean? For what? Do these semantics yield a positive outcome? Topics include: What is a ‘failure-free period?’ Is it a period that is free of failures? Well … many textbooks say NO! A ‘failure-free period’ is often defined as a period where the probability of failure is sufficiently ‘small.’ What does ‘small’ mean? How ‘small’ is ‘small enough?’ Why do we do this? Reliability is quality over time. Is it? What is ‘quality?’ Even the most basic literature review on the topics will show that even the pre-eminent standards and ‘gurus’ can’t agree on what quality is? Both Fred and Chris have sat in conversations where for example two engineers argue over whether something a ‘quality failure’ versus a ‘reliability failure.’ Why? In this case, it is mainly about who was responsible for addressing the failure. The customer doesn’t care if a failure is internally classified as a ‘reliability’ versus ‘quality’ failure. It comes down to intent. If the organization knows what they are ‘intending’ to achieve, it often doesn’t matter what you call the metric. There have been organizations that have very successfully focused the organization on reducing the number of warranty actions customers were initiating. Some of these organizations have classified the fraction of warranty actions as the ‘failure rate.’ This definition is wrong! … if you read a textbook. But who cares (in this case). Every employee of the organization in question knew that ‘failure rate’ was internally describing the fraction of products that suffer warranty failures. And they achieved remarkable results. We often see organizations that have no clear ‘reliability’ intent spawning frivolous conversations about what a ‘fault’ is. Or isn’t. Use the words that matter. And what matters is based on what you are trying to achieve. If everyone knows what you are trying to achieve, then any discrepancies in word meanings become … trivial! 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes   The post SOR 664 The Words We Use Matter appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Calculating Acceleration Factor Abstract Chris and Fred discuss accelerated testing – and how we come up with acceleration factors. Accelerated testing is great! It allows us to compress an entire lifecycle into a short test duration for us to quickly understand the reliability characteristics of our system … ONLY if we know what we are doing. Keen to learn more? Key Points Join Chris and Fred as they discuss accelerated testing as it relates to a real life problem. A listener sent us a message about an accelerated testing paradigm where ‘software’ was providing ‘weird’ results. At one test level, the software suggested one distribution. At another level, the software suggested another. So what is going on? Topics include: If the failure mechanism is the same, we should see the same distribution. For example, if we are accelerating fatigue by increasing the rate of cycles or the cyclic stress, we should typically see the lognormal distribution describe the cycles to failure at different stress levels. If we accelerate the temperature, and the underlying dominant chemical failure mechanism doesn’t change, then again, we should see the same distribution describe time to failure. So if we see two different time to failure distributions, this immediately suggests that accelerating stresses actually changes the dominant failure mechanism. But there is another explanation. 8 points … is not enough. So no wonder the software in this case was struggling! The Weibull distribution can mimic lots of other probability distributions. So if you have a ‘mixed’ suggestion and only a small number of data points, this can make sense. So … you need more data. We need more than two stress levels. Accelerated testing involves increasing stresses. But to get accelerated testing data ‘back’ to actual use situations, we need to create what we call Acceleration Factors (AFs). And AFs are based on a Physics of Failure (PoF) Model. Which we typically need to assume – based on a good understanding of how things fail. And to make sure our PoF model is right, we need to have at least three different stress levels to see if we are on the money. … and we need to be careful of censored data. We don’t know in this scenario if the 8 data (failure) points we have were from a larger number of systems where a lot of systems were still working. This brings us to another problem where we toss out data we think ‘doesn’t fit.’ For example, do we throw out ‘early’ failures because they are ‘quality and not reliability? Do we throw out a couple of other failures because they are ‘outliers?’ You really shouldn’t, unless you can conduct a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and identify that the test itself caused that failure. … and also – be careful with the software. Software is a tool. It doesn’t replace our capacity to make decisions. You need to look more deeply into it, and perhaps understand that you have a small amount of information which (quite rightly) causes all manners of problems when it comes to trying to guess the ‘best’ distribution. 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes   The post SOR 663 Calculating Acceleration Factor appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Leading Teams Abstract Carl and Fred discussing the essence of team leadership. Reliability engineers need to add effective team leadership to their core set of skills. Key Points Join Carl and Fred as they discuss leading teams, and the skills and key elements of team leadership. Topics include: Help team members make their best decisions Reliability engineers help other engineers make good decisions Managers often make decisions against a checklist Leaders make decisions and help people see the overall vision Leaders help people solve problems and make improvements Believe in the capabilities of the people you work with Blind spots and how teams can solve them Deep discussions can arrive at solutions beyond the individuals You don’t have to be an expert to offer your ideas 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes   The post SOR 662 Leading Teams appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

661 Management vs Leadership Abstract Carl and Fred discussing what it means to be a leader, and how the principles of leadership go beyond the traditional roles of management. Key Points Join Carl and Fred as they discuss the role of leadership in reliability programs, and why it matters to reliability engineers. Topics include: What does it means to be a leader? What does it mean to be a manager? Supplier Reliability is not well thought through in some companies Working *with* suppliers rather than against them Leading by teaching, inspiring, doing the right things What are the conditions for success? Focus on vital few; what is most critical? The shortcomings in some standards, such as ISO 9000 series 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes Leadership books: Principle-Centered Leadership, by Stephen R. Covey The Leadership Moment, by Michael Useem Leadership and Self-Deception, by The Arbinger Institute Quantum Leap Thinking, by James J. Mapes Leadership Secrets of Attila The Hun, by Wess Roberts Developing the Leader Within You, by John C. Maxwell The post SOR 661 Management vs Leadership appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Effort versus Outcomes Abstract Chris and Fred discuss what it means to focus on ‘effort’ instead of ‘outcomes.’ We often think we focus on outcomes only … but how many people ‘get by’ simply by being ‘seen’ around the office, looking busy when there, and otherwise being friendly to everyone? They always volunteer to be part of a team, do some of the ‘less glamorous’ tasks, and otherwise be ‘part of something.’ But is this person actually valuable? (… harsh as the question sounds). Key Points Join Chris and Fred as they discuss how ‘effort’ can often be confused with ‘outcomes.’ Topics include: Covid-19 and how ‘working from home’ arrangements has actually forced people to ‘stand by’ their work. This means some of those people who were always ‘busy’ at work were exposed as largely incapable of producing ‘high quality’ outcomes.  And conversely, those engineers who were always seen as ‘too cruisy’ in the office are able to provide wonderful outputs by 10 am each day. Leaving them time to do other ‘work-life’ balance stuff. Not prioritizing meaning that organizations try and do things like HALT on everything and not on the vital few. It is much better to do HALT properly on big-ticket items than 30 minutes of HALT on everything without getting any meaningful results. And how does this relate to reliability #1 – Perhaps not wanting to do reliability properly? … because it gets in the way. Fred and Chris go back and forth on this one. Perhaps Chris has been jaded a little more by some organizations! But in this scenario, this involves the organization really wanting to get to the next milestone, tick the next box on the contract, or simply say we have a plan. OR A CHECKLIST! OR WE OUTSOURCE OUR THINKING! And how does this relate to reliability #2 – When we are confused. We don’t know what we need to do to improve reliability … so we try and do everything. We need to improve our reliability by a factor of two? Then we need to do twice as much reliability stuff. And how does this relate to reliability #3 – Because we got burned. That last model, we didn’t model temperature properly, so now we do thermal modelling on everything. It is very reactive. And exhausting. And how does this relate to reliability #4 – Because it is … there? Bill (back in ’68) came up with this test – and we have always done it. Or this plan worked well for the last project – so we’ll use it again. So why are we doing something again … ? OR … you could work out what you value the most. Take the time to think about what you want to get. Work out how to get there. And invest effort in those vital few activities. 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes   The post SOR 660 Effort versus Outcomes appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

3 Perspectives for Fault Tree Analysis Abstract Chris and Fred discussing the 3 perspectives of Fault Tree Analysis or FTA. What … there are 3 perspectives? … what are perspectives when it comes to FTA? Key Points Join Chris and Fred as they discuss FTA and how it can be used from 3 different perspectives. Which all inform different decisions. You need to know the decision to work out what the right perspective is. Confused? Topics include: Perspective #1 – analyzing system reliability. FTA can be used to convert whatever knowledge you have about component reliability performance characteristics into system reliability performance characteristics. This means you have a system that is already design or configured, and you already know or can estimate the reliability of components. This also allows you to understand the effect of redundancy, improving the reliability of one component over another and lots of other scenarios where you might be interested in seeing what happens if you modify component reliability performance. Perspective #2 – Root Cause Analysis (RCA). That means, something bad has happened and you want to work out why. FTA used from the perspective of RCA is not about quantifying reliability, but to find potential root causes for that failure. The root cause doesn’t have to be a component failure. In fact, most of the time the root cause is some decision that led to that component failing. And FTA can help you identify lots of potential root causes, and prioritize the most likely ones. It is (in other words) a brainstorming tool Perspective #3 – Robust, Customer-Centric Design. FTA used from this perspective is similar to how it is used for RCA. We are essentially brainstorming how bad things that haven’t occurred yet happen. The idea here is that we come up with a bunch of ‘bad’ or undesirable events that we want to avoid and use FTA to identify potential root causes that we can design out of our system. The really good thing here is that we can also include undesirable events such as ‘disappointing the customer.’ Depending on what decision you are making, or perspective you are using, FTA can be really useful. 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes   The post SOR 659 3 Perspectives for Fault Tree Analysis appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Equipment Life Expectations Abstract James and Fred discussing the many variables that impact equipment expected lifetimes. Key Points Join James and Fred as they discuss Topics include: A brief description of the Design for Maintenance book that James is a co-author. Trying to estimate how long equipment should last Impact of maintenance practices on equipment life 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes The new book Design for Maintainability on Amazon The post SOR 658 Equipment Life Expectations appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Evolution and Reliability Abstract Kirk and Fred discussing the evolution of technology and reliability in consumer products. Key Points Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss reasons people are motivated to replace old technologies with new technologies. Topics include: Many people prefer sticking with older technology that has been proved reliable over learning to use newer technologies even though there are many new useful features. Sometimes the motivation of buying an upgrade to a technology is for status, not the benefit of significant improvement in features Some new HDTV technologies have replaced older technologies that did have a wear out problem as Kirk’s old DLP (Digital Light Processing) HDTV. Batteries still have a limited life compared to semiconductors and are the reason many devices are replaced instead of repaired. 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes Here is the link to the NYT Opinion article referenced in this podcast “Your Smartphone Should be Built to Last” by Damon Beres Please click on this link to access a relatively new analysis of traditional reliability prediction methods article from the US ARMY and CALCE titled  “Reliability Prediction – A Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach” For more information on the newest discovery testing methodology here is a link to the book “Next Generation HALT and HASS: Robust design of Electronics and Systems” written by Kirk Gray and John Paschkewitz. The post SOR 657 Evolution and Reliability appeared first on Accendo Reliability.

Reliability is Green Abstract Kirk and Fred discussing a recent opinion article in the New York Times on technology waste. Key Points Join Kirk and Fred as they discuss the challenge of the rapid introduction of new technologies and disposal of the old technology. Topics include: Sometimes we look for an excuse to upgrade to newer technologies, even though a device can be repaired, and after repair still have significant life left in the electronics. Different products have different times to technology obsolescence, and many automobile  replacements are due to the better safety technologies. Some technologies would  make  engineering tradeoffs to make internal electronics in smartphones more repairable would also make them non-competitive. 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. Download Audio  RSS Show Notes Here is the link to the NYT Opinion article referenced in this podcast “Your Smartphone Should be Built to Last” by Damon Beres Please click on this link to access a relatively new analysis of traditional reliability prediction methods article from the US ARMY and CALCE titled  “Reliability Prediction – A Continued Reliance on a Misleading Approach” For more information on the newest discovery testing methodology here is a link to the book “Next Generation HALT and HASS: Robust design of Electronics and Systems” written by Kirk Gray and John Paschkewitz. The post SOR 656 Reliability is Green appeared first on Accendo Reliability.