#117 – FACING THE FEAR OF STATISTICS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredWhen reading a report and there is a large complex formula, maybe a derivation, do you just skip over it? Does a phrase such as 95% confidence of 98% reliability over 2 years not help your understanding of the result? When you read about hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, point estimates, parameters, independent identically distributed variables, random samples, orthogonal arrays, do you just shiver a bit? Do you know of folks around you who not only do not understand these terms but do not want to understand them? Continue reading

#116 – THE CONSTANT FAILURE RATE MYTH – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredHave you said yourself or have you heard someone say any of the following:

  • “Let’s assume it’s in the flat part of the curve”
  • “Assuming constant failure rate…”
  • “We can use the exponential distribution because we are in the useful life period.”

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#115 – DOES A CERTIFICATION MAKE YOU A PROFESSIONAL RELIABILITY ENGINEER? – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredDoes a Certification Make You a Professional Reliability Engineer?

The short answer to this question is “No, it doesn’t.”

A certification is just a piece of paper that conveys that you have mastered some body of knowledge. You most likely also committed to abide by a code of ethics. You may also have committed to continuing education to maintain the certification. Continue reading

#114 – THE CONVENIENT USE OF MTBF – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredSometimes making an assumption is a good thing. You can achieve more with less. A well-placed assumption saves you time, work, and worry. The right assumption may even be left unstated: It’s so good that no one questions it.

Have you ever assumed that the failures for a system follow an exponential distribution? Did you assume that tallying up the total hours and dividing by the number of failures was appropriate? Did you even check? Continue reading

#109 – FAILING TO GET FEEDBACK ON FIELD FAILURES – FRED SCHENKELBERG

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ABC FredImagine you are requested to assist a design team in determining how to best improve the reliability of a product. You learn that the organization produces a range of point of sale (POS) devices and they have invited you to a meeting to discuss the product and ways to improve the field reliability. Continue reading