One of the best things about reliability engineering is the never ending opportunity to learn. We work with materials, assembly processes, and people creating and maintaining products, machines, and systems. Other engineering disciplines tend to focus on one aspect of a design or process – mechanical engineers make allowances for the circuit board location and heat transfer requirements, yet do not word on the circuits themselves.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. ~ Jim Rohn
The learning never stops. As a reliability engineer we constantly have something to learn. For those unfamiliar with reliability engineering, they have a lot to learn. From new Continue reading Teacher and Student
Part of what appears to be a series on what it takes to be a really good reliability engineer.
For professionals knowing enough of the right people, helping them solve issues, and asking them for assistance when needed is essential. This is what I mean by networking. Continue reading Networked and Positive
The post on ethics and MTBF and the comments has me thinking about what it means to be a talented and professional reliability engineer. Continue reading Talented and Professional
MTBF for electronics life entitlement measurements is a meaningless term. It says nothing about the distribution of failures or the cause of failures and is only valid for a constant failure rate, which almost never occurs in the real world. It is a term that should be eliminated along with reliability predictions of electronics systems with no moving parts. Continue reading Eliminating early life failures
Linkedin groups are a continual source of interesting questions. We learn and share with each other to grapple with some of the common and not so common issues we face at work. For example, recently in the Plant Reliabilty & Maintenance Professionals – PRMP Linkedin group the follow in question appeared. Continue reading Value of reliability engineering
One of the venues for learning about reliability is the blogosphere. In some cases purely educational, others are more appropriate for the opinion page. Some comment on interesting facets of reliability and maintenance engineering, while others focus on examples of services provided.
Implementing a new reliability development paradigm in a company which is using traditional, standards-based testing can be a perilous journey. It is especially true with introducing HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) in which strength against stress, and not quantifying electronics lifetimes is the new metric. Because of this significant change in test orientation, a critical factor for success begins with educating the company’s top Continue reading Why success with HALT begins long before doing HALT
Each of us have seen product life or component reliability claims on product literature or data sheets. We may even have received such claims stated as goals and been asked to support the claim with some form of an experiment. Standards bodies from ANSI, BSI, ISO, IEC, and others from around the world provide standard methods for testing products. This includes product life testing in some cases. Continue reading Question use of reliability testing standards
Kirk Gray, Accelerated Reliability Solutions, L.L.C.
It is easy to understand why the term HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) is so tightly couple to the equipment called “HALT chambers” systems. Many do not think they can do HALT processes without a “HALT Chamber”. Many know that Dr. Gregg Hobbs, who coined the term HALT and also HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screens), spent much of his life promoting the techniques and was also the founder of two “HALT/HASS” environmental chamber companies. Continue reading Why HALT is a methodology, not equipment
Just a short note today about a great high level article in Wired magazine. Robert Capps did a nice summary and review of the significance of reliability engineering, product failure and what we can do about it.
And he doesn’t mention MTBF – which is appropriate.
http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/ff-why-products-fail/all/
In light of the International Day of Failure, Oct 13th, let’s consider failure from a reliability engineer’s point of view. We work to understand and avoid product failures. When a product fails to deliver the desired performance attribute it is tossed away, returned, replaced, repaired, or tolerated. This may occur before or after the value of the product has been achieved. Continue reading International Day of Failure
Kirk Gray, Accelerated Reliability Solutions, L.L.C.
Many reliability engineers have discovered HALT will quickly find the weaknesses and reliability risks in electronic and electromechanical systems from the capability of thermal cycling and vibration to create rapid mechanical fatigue in electronic assemblies. Assemblies that have latent defects such as cold solder or cracked solder joints, loose connectors or mechanical fasteners, or component package defects can be brought to a detectable, or patent, condition by which we can observe and potentially improve the robustness of an electronics system. Continue reading Why Parametric Variation Can Lead to Failures and HALT Can Help
Reliability, maintainability, availability, or the ‘ilities’ are common in our language with reference to products, services, equipment, and people. Joe is regularly available for the meeting; We can count on (depend or rely) Sara to finish the report on time; My car starts every morning without fail; and many more. What is meant with these concepts and specifically how do we manage achieving and sustaining business objectives related to these ‘ility’ concepts? The purpose of this short paper Continue reading What is Reliability
Kirk Gray, Accelerated Reliability Solutions L.L.C.
Traditional electronics reliability engineering began during the period of infancy in solid state electronic hardware. The first comprehensive guide to Failure Prediction Methodology (FPM) premiered in 1956 with the publication of the RCA release TR-1100: “Reliability Stress Analysis for Electronic Equipment” presented models for computing rates of component failures. “RADC Reliability Notebook” emerged later in 1959, followed by the publication of a military handbook know as that addressed reliability prediction known as Military Handbook for Continue reading Reliability Paradigm Shift From Time to Stress Metrics