#379 – 7 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A REQUEST – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Not every request we make is fulfilled. Not every assignment is accomplished. Not every task we assign is completed.

Why is that? Possibly, the lack of a complete request.

It may be the person we made the request to was incapable or decided to ignore us. Or, more likely, it may be our request was not clear. Continue reading

#376 – TO IMPROVE RELIABILITY GET GOOD AT CHANGE MANAGEMENT – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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The process to design and deliver a reliable product involves identifying risks. Taking action to understand or mitigate those risks involves much of the day to day work of reliability engineering.

Taking action to set expectations and improve decisions involves change. Change of understanding, change of specifications, change of expectations, change of designs, processes, and results. Continue reading

#375 – RECEIVING FEEDBACK WELL – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Not all of us are fortunate enough to receive great feedback. We all do receive feedback, and some receive very little actionable feedback.

If you offer proposals, give presentations, make requests, or even just ask for a favor, you will receive some form of response. It often is just an answer to the call to action, and nothing more. Continue reading

#374 – RELIABILITY ENGINEERING AND LEADERSHIP – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Leadership is a difficult term to clearly define. A team leader may have poor or wonderful leadership skills. A product may lead in a market with a broad feature offering, yet not hold a recognized leadership position.

As a reliability engineer, you will find many opportunities to lead. Your ability to provide vision, direction, guidance, and support for a team enables you to affect change and accomplish goals. Continue reading

#373 – 11 MOTIVATIONS TO LEARN RELIABILITY ENGINEERING – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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There are many reasons or motivations to learn. From our boss asking us to solve a problem in an unfamiliar field of science, to simple curiosity.

When faced with an unusual failure mode, we need to learn what is causing the failure in order to solve the problem. When exploring a new material, we want to learn how it will fail in our design. Continue reading