#322 – FUTURE OF PROFESSION – RELIABILITY ENGINEERING – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Fred Schenkelberg is a reliability engineer who has worked in the field for over twenty years. He is a West Point graduate. He majored in Physics. He holds a Masters in Statistics from Stanford University. He began his career in reliability engineering at Raychem Corporation. He moved to Hewlett Packard (HP). At HP he helped create the Corporate Reliability Program. In 2004 he founded FMS Reliability. FMS Reliability is a management and reliability engineering consulting firm. He is the founder of the reliability engineering professional development site Accendo Reliability. Continue reading

#323 – BEST PRACTICES TO DEALING WITH FIELD FAILURES – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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A common practice I’ve seen in organizations is to deal with field failures when they occur. This may occur when the mistaken assumption that no failure will occur due to ‘such an excellent design.”

Ben Franklin may not have been thinking about future product failures, yet his quote:

By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.

implies we need to prepare ourselves and our organization to deal with field failures. Having clear processes to deal with field failures is a best practice. Continue reading

#321 – CULTURE FOR DESIGN FOR RELIABILITY – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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The way we think and act concerning creating a reliable product or system defines the reliability culture of an origination. I trust your organization doesn’t complete the design then ask the reliability folks to ‘add the reliability element’ or ‘test to prove it’s reliable enough’.

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#319 – HOW ONE PERSON CAN CHANGE A RELIABILITY CULTURE – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Nicholas W. Eyrich, Robert E. Quinn, and David P. Fessell published in the Harvard Business Review an article titled “How One Person Can Change the Conscience of an Organization”, dated December 27, 2019. In the article, they discuss how corporate transformations, while assumed to occur from the top-down, actually it is the middle managers and first-line supervisor that can make significant change happen. Continue reading

#318 – IS MAKING ASSUMPTION SIMILAR TO MAKING MISTAKES – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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Over the past week, I received a couple of interesting questions. One concerned assuming a Weibull beta value for an accelerated life test plan. The second involved assuming expected life models for elements within a reliability block diagram.

In both cases, we faced incomplete data and uncertainties, yet felt the need to assume some values in order for the math to work out. We do make assumptions in order to solve problems. We also can make mistakes that lead to unwanted consequences. Continue reading