Welcome

What started as a simple observation has developed into a personal mission to stop the widespread misuse, misunderstanding and misinformation circling around MTBF.

The acronym, MTBF, stands for Mean Time Between Failure. It is very likely the worst four letter acronym in the reliability engineering profession.

This site explores the issues, problems, and faults around the improper use of MTBF. It also provides how to spot correct and incorrect uses, plus how to ‘help’ individuals, teams, suppliers and organizations to ‘get it right’.

  I have downloaded a copy for all the decision makers around me who don’t understand the true meaning of the MTBF!!  
Cora Altena

For a quick overview of many of the common problems read Perils. For some ideas on what you can do, read Actions. Let me know what’s working or not, and let’s discuss how to best move forward.

The blog, presentations, papers and trying to convince all to avoid using MTBF without thinking. The Notes page has our weekly posts on topics related to MTBF – go ahead and comment, share and discuss. And, if you’d like a coffee mug, shirt or buttons – the CafePress based store has a wide selection.

If you would like to contribute a guest blog or note, just let me know. brought to you by Fred Schenkelberg, fms@nomtbf.com and friends.