Many engineers and managers developing products or maintaining equipment seem to be afflicted with “knowledge apathy” concerning reliability. “They don’t care!” is a posted comment I have seen in Linkedin. Has this happened? Have we lost the ability to care about reliability? Continue reading
As the Danish physicist Niels Bohr once proclaimed “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” From the general wondering about the enemy’s next move, to the corporate board members estimating the capabilities of the competition’s next product, to the maintenance manager ordering spare parts, we have many uses for knowing the future. Continue reading
If you are reviewing a drawing or set of specifications and all the tolerances are set at a blanket value, this should raise your suspicions, for it implies that every tolerance has the same importance as all others. This may be true, yet it is often not possible nor necessary for the design and resulting system to function correctly. Continue reading
In a previous posting (Creating a Reliability Plan – Starting Points), I introduced the two basic philosophies for creating a reliability plan for a new product or system: the build, test, fix, approach, and the analytical approach. Combining these two styles in a balanced approach leads to the best results. In this posting, I want to get more specific and outline the 7 basic steps to follow to create a sound reliability program. Continue reading
There are two basic philosophies for creating a reliability plan for a new product or system. One is to experiment with prototypes as quickly and often as possible: This is the so-called build, test, fix approach. Alternatively, you can research and model detailed aspects of the materials and structures to characterize the strength of a product or system: This is the analytical approach. Both methods have obvious applications and not so obvious limitations. Continue reading