Holiday Break and a Few Notes

Thank you

First off I want to say thanks to you the readers of the NoMTBF blog. The notes of thanks, of encouragement, and support all propel me to write to you each week.

I especially like the stories of success helping someone ‘get it’ concerning the common misunderstandings of MTBF.  I have to think your work and actions is making a difference across the field of reliability engineering. We’re making progress.

The NoMTBF Site and Plans Going Forward

2016 is nearly here and it’s time to sort out what to write about, to add, to develop for you, the NoMTBF community. Weekly articles on various aspects of reliability engineering with a continued push toward being clear and helpful with our work. That seems to be the core of the site and community.

In 2015 we launched The Reliability Metric book and receive wonderful feedback and support for that project. It’s available via MagCloud as PDF and as Print on Demand softcover. In 2016, what do you think of adding a course based on the book? A bit of reliability statistics, a bit on establishing useful reliability metrics, and maybe a little on the perils of MTBF and what you can do to make the change away from MTBF.

What do you think?

In 2016 I’d like to add a couple of other authors to the mix, too. If you’d like to write about reliability topics, let me know. I’d really like to add at least one more article per week, so either another serious author, or 4 or more that can contribute at least once a month. Keep in mind that the authors that have contributed before, like Kirk, create articles that receive way more attention than mine (which is great – really).

The site and blog platform provides the structure and audience, so put together a few ideas, jot down an outline or two, and start writing. It’s good for you, your career, and our profession.

The NoMTBF Campaign of 2016

cropped-NoMTBF500x500T.pngMany of you have or know about the NoMTBF campaign buttons. Keep them visible as they do start conversations and sometimes even cause people to think. Which is a good thing.

For 2016, I’m thinking about ordering another bulk of the buttons. This keeps the price of the individual buttons low. Another idea is to us lapel stickers – look like a button, yet just a bit of paper and adhesive rather than a metal button and pin structure.

The buttons cost about $0.30 each for an order of 1,000. The stickers cost about $0.10 each for an order of 1,000. So, in the spirit of a Kickstarter campaign, any pledges of support? If Enough of you would like to order buttons and / or stickers, let me know how many you’d like along with your commitment to buy that quantity or more if we make the target of at least 1k buttons or 1k stickers.

I’ll have to sort out shipping costs, yet will keep it reasonable. So, be sure to get enough to share at your next meeting, conference, or walk through the office break room.

Send me an email directly if would like to support this bulk buy project. Email Fred about getting buttons or stickers.

Thanks Again

Seriously, thanks for all the kind words, support, subscriptions, book purchases, and stories of success. This site started partly out of frustration with the rampant mis understandings around a simple metric, and in large part out of encouragement of folks like you.

 

Best Wishes to you and your family in the new year

Cheers,

Fred

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.

6 thoughts on “Holiday Break and a Few Notes

  1. Thanks for sharing your experience sir, it is helping me a lot for knowing new things. Happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. Thanks, Fred – glad I found you. As someone who is not a reliability engineer, but rather an engineer responsible for reliability, trying to change a culture, it helps to have some of these principles boiled down so I can convey them to the organization. I embrace your pragmatism.
    To that end, I do like the idea of a course being offered, so I can get some people to hear it from a different source who may be able to convey it better than I.
    Happy New Year

    1. Thanks Kevin,

      Thanks for the kind words and comments. You and others have responded favorably and I have a couple of ideas in mind for a basic introduction to reliability for engineers type courses. For culture change that is a larger task and does take time, as you no doubt know. You may find the book Reliability Management of interest as it looks at assessing you current culture and provides specific steps to improve the culture. You can find it at accendoreliability.com and it’s free to download as a member of the site.

      Cheers,

      Fred

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