3 MTBF Stories

Everyone loves a great story. Storytelling has been a long tradition to pass along knowledge and wisdom.

There are good stories, tales of inspiration. There are sad stories, tales of caution.

There are fables, ghost stores, legends, epic poems, and more. When considering the reliability performance of your product or equipment, you probably have a few stories that you can tell. “That time … “

Simple join colleagues for lunch and ask about the ‘major disasters’ of the past. The stories help us to remember and hopefully avoid repeating mistakes.

Here are three stories with MTBF as a central figure. It is a site and blog that does take about MTBF, so it fits. To start, let me introduce you to Martin, a new reliability engineering reporting to his first day of work at a bicycle design and manufacturing company. Two sad stories and a good one. enjoy. Continue reading 3 MTBF Stories →

Different Data Same Decision

Let say you have some time to failure data on your equipment. A common action is to calculate the MTBF. All well and good until you expect to make a meaningful decision based on the calculation.

Using just the mean of the data, the MTBF value is likely to provide you with a less than useful bit of information. Thus your decision will be rather random or worthless.

Let’s explore just how this simple calculation of perfectly good data can mislead your decision making. Continue reading Different Data Same Decision →

Let’s Demand Better Reliability Engineering Content

Teaching reliability occurs through textbooks, technical papers, peers, mentors, and courses. The many sources available tend to use MTBF as a primary vehicle to describe system reliability.

What has gone wrong with our education process? Continue reading Are We Teaching Reliability All Wrong? →

The MTBF Stories You Tell Can Cause Change

Stories communicate well. We have been telling stories long before the invention of writing, or the internet. The MTBF stories we tell communicate our ideas, suggestions, and recommendations.

There are a differences between good and poor stories. How you tell a story matters as well as the subject of the story. Now, MTBF stories may not be the most thrilling or entertaining, yet there are stories on MTBF topics that matter.

Let’s explore using the power of story to cause those around us to better understand and avoid the use of MTBF. Continue reading 3 Types of MTBF Stories →

How We Think About Reliability Is Important

Getting on an airplane we think about the very low probability of failure during the flight duration. This is how we think about reliability.

When buying a car we think about if the vehicle will leave us stranded along a deserted stretch of highway. When buy light bulbs for the hard to reach fixtures we consider paying a bit more to avoid having to drag out the ladder as often.

When we consider reliability as a customer does, we think about the possibility of failure over some duration.

And, we really don’t like it when something fails sooner than expected (or upon installation). Continue reading How We Think About Reliability →

Is MTBF Preventing Your Product From Being Reliable?

MTBF is not reliability. Attaining a specific MTBF does not mean your product is reliable. MTBF use may be the culprit.

Therefore, working to achieve a MTBF value may actually be preventing you from creating a product that mets your customer’s reliability performance expectations.

Actively working to achieve MTBF using the common tools around MTBF may be taking you and your team down the wrong rabbit hole. You may be working to reduce the reliability of your products rather than improving them.

Let’s take a look at a couple of ways the pursuit of MTBF is harmful to your product’s reliability potential and contrary to your customer’s expectations. Continue reading MTBF Use May Reduce Product Reliability →

Let me ask you something concerning MTBF

Do make compromises around gathering and analyzing data since you only need to report MTBF?

Do you use MTBF (exponential distribution) based test planning when you know the product has a non-constant hazard rate?

These questions came up this week via email looking for advice when directed to ignore the actual situation and just do what the customer wants.

I’m traveling this week, rather jet-lagged today, so going to keep this one short.

How would you answer these questions? What advice would you give someone using exponential based reporting, test planning, or data analysis approaches knowing the customer expects that process yet the data and your experience suggest you should use another method  (Weibull or MCF, for example)?

Please add you comments below and let’s prepare a list of what one should say or use to respond to such actions.