#92 – CREATING A RELIABILITY PLAN: STARTING POINTS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

ABC FredThere 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

#90 – RELIABILITY TESTING CONSIDERATIONS – FRED SCHENKELBERG

ABC FredReliability testing to determine what will fail or when the failures will occur can be expensive. Organizations invest in the development of a product and attempt through the design process to create a product that is reliable. The design process has many unknowns though. This includes uncertainties about materials, design margins, use environments, loads, and aging effects. Using the best practices of design for reliability will minimize this list of risks to product reliability, yet it will not resolve all the uncertainty. Continue reading

#88 – WEAR OUT FAILURES – DEAL WITH IT! – FRED SCHENKELBERG

ABC FredIn a previous posting,  I addressed two types of failure: early life and random. By definition, early life failures occur early during the product lifecycle whereas random fails can occur at any time. Near the end of the product lifecycle appears yet another type of failure: wear-out failure. Continue reading