#362 – FUTURE OF QUALITY – DIANNA DEENEY

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The current state of the quality profession is affected by shifting business infrastructures and changing definitions of brand quality.

Businesses need to react and change against external pressures like increased frequency of consumer communications, the availability of big data, expanding regulations and standards, and the expectations to innovate quickly. The quality profession is at risk of losing its effectiveness in the overall business operations if it does not proactively change with the business. Continue reading

#360 – HOW MUCH RELIABILITY DATA IS ENOUGH! – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Some may argue that just enough reliability data is just the right amount. Too much may lead to confusion, too little doesn’t inform well. The reliability work we do helps others make decisions, and recent work in how humans make decisions may help us prepare and present our results effectively.

If preparing reliability data-based recommendations, consider using less information. Ed O’Brien and Nadav Klein have found decision-makers tend to use much less data or information to make a decision than they think they will need. Continue reading

#359 – THREE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR RELIABILITY THINKING – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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I often joke that being a reliability engineer makes it difficult to get on an airplane. Yet air travel is by far the safest method of transportation. Maybe I just think about failure too much.

When a project manager views the day’s tasks, she sees timelines, connections, dependencies. When a marketing manager views a product idea, she sees benefits, sales channels, and profits. When a reliability engineer views a prototype, she sees the many ways it can fail

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#357 – PRIORITIZING URGENT VS. IMPORTANT RELIABILITY TASKS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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As reliability professionals, we have a lot to do. Risks to identify, failures to analyze. Plans to draft, numbers to crunch. Meetings, writing, research, and leading fill the day.

The list of tasks that you have before you each day is impressive and daunting. So, how do you focus on what actually requires your attention and not just the tasks that get your attention? Continue reading

#356 – DESIGN FOR RISK IDEA – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Yesterday had the chance to review the long list of Design for X topics. Assembly, environment, maintainability, and of course reliability, plus about a dozen other areas of focus. How is a design team to navigate all these different sets of constraints and objectives along with crafting a solution that works?

With a little creativity, you could relate every Design for X topic to reliability. Easier to assembly, fewer assembly errors leading to field failures, for example. Continue reading