Category Archives: Reliability@Risk™ – Fred Schenkelberg

#150 – DO YOUR KPI’S ADVERSELY IMPACT RELIABILITY – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredKey performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values related to essential business objectives. A KPI provides a means to monitor the performance of a specific function.

In larger organizations, with sales & marketing, research & development, operations, supply chain, and other teams working to bring products to market, each department has a specific role. For example, the sales team engages with potential customers to assist with the customer’s purchase decision. The organization and the sales team may want to focus on sales growth or average profit margin as KPIs. Continue reading →

#149 – INCORPORATING RELIABILITY INTO DESIGN REVIEWS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredReliability Input into Design Reviews

Consider the following scenario: You are a reliability engineer working for a large corporation that plans to launch a new product. On occasion, you and the team sit down to review the design. The idea is to check the design for any issues with the combined wisdom of all the players involved. Or, perhaps, the review serves as just a status update for the entire team, providing a focus on the most important issues and action items. Continue reading →

#147 – ACHIEVING PROCESS STABILITY – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredWhat Is Process Stability?

Everything varies. Your vendors provide components with a range of values. Your production process varies, too. Creating, monitoring, and maintaining process stability enhances your product reliability performance.

When I started my professional life as a manufacturing engineer, a senior engineer told me that we take a product design and can only make it worse. He said that, if we could make every unit exactly according to the nominal values of the drawing, every unit would work well. Continue reading →

#146 – HOW SAMPLE SIZE AFFECTS DECISION MAKING – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredSample Size Determination

When planning for quality or reliability testing, an often posed question is: How many samples do you need? The trite answer is: Just as many samples as you need and not one more. A better answer is: Enough samples to make the right decision. The realistic expectation is : You will not have enough samples. Continue reading →

#145 – GATHERING DATA WITH NEVADA CHARTS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredGathering Field Failure Data

A common and rather poor technique to gather field data is to count the number of returns by week or month. This can provide a graph showing the number of returns over time. However, it hides useful information you need to understand your field failures.

Let’s take a look at a way to gather the same field failure data and retain the critical information necessary for time-to-failure analysis. Continue reading →