#324 – IMPROVING RELIABILITY WITH GOOD JUDGMENT – FRED SCHENKELBERG

Featured

At an early concept meeting discussing the technical strategy for the new product, the engineering teams were at an impasse. The decision matrix balanced out with three distinct options. Product reliability differed slightly with each option yet presented risks just as the considerations of cost, complexity, feature set, and time to market.

The project manager, the leader of the development program, asked a few questions, asked for input from the director of engineering, and selected a path forward. Continue reading

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

Featured

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

Featured

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

Featured

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’.

Continue reading

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

Featured

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