The MTBF Estimation Wizard

Get Your MTBF Estimation Here

MTBF is a magic method for predicting time to failure for your new design. On this page we present to you the fastest way to achieving MTBF.

Maybe The Best Function ever!

Zoltar says that your design has an MTBF of:

6,574 years

If you don’t like this number, Zoltar can give you another. Just click here: 

or try

which may work on your browser.

Note: This function was released on April 1st, 2009. Have Fun!


This method of MTBF estimation is as good or quite possibly better than others in common use. I trust Zoltar will serve your well.

A few years ago a clever reliability engineer create this bit of code for an internal company site.

The intent is to encourage discussion about reliability and improving product reliability performance. The idea is to help those in the organization looking for a quick estimate of MTBF find one. Then the team could engage with them to determine the actual reliability questions and help provide answers.

Estimating, or calculating, or predicting, MTBF is rather a pointless exercise. So, if all you need a number, ask Zoltar. If you want to understand the reliability of your system, well that is not found by looking for MTBF.

How do you encourage your teams and industry to avoid looking for just the MTBF number? Add you thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

About Fred Schenkelberg

I am an experienced reliability engineering and management consultant with my firm FMS Reliability. My passion is working with teams to create cost-effective reliability programs that solve problems, create durable and reliable products, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce warranty costs.

11 thoughts on “The MTBF Estimation Wizard

  1. Fred,
    The link is generating a warning message: “Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern” could please give the actual URL?
    What is expected to happen upon connecting following the link?

    Thank you,

    Michael

    1. my first attempt to hook up the wizard used Java scripts, which triggers alerts with a few browsers. Moving to html only solution and it now doesn’t work on all browsers… more work to get this working for all. In the meantime, just pick your favorite value and go with that. cheers, Fred

    1. Hi William, it appears that on certain browsers the refresh doesn’t reset the wizard properly, so I’m off into HTML land to sort out a way to help the wizard properly think about the chance to rethink the problem. cheers Fred

  2. Remove the 1st of April reference and I can possible convince some managers this is the correct way of doing MTBF.
    Just add the possibility to get a higher random number.

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