Reliability Engineering

Fred Schenkelberg
fms@fmsreliability.com
Day 2 Session 2

RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES TO
IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
 Objectives
Examining opportunities and reliability
improvement techniques for robust design
RCM, FMEA, RCA, 6 step and FRETT
Developing corrective actions and determining
effectiveness
Implementing the growth curve technique
Fault and failure forecasting
 FMEA
Organized risk analysis
Severity
Occurrence
Detection

Use in Design process

 RCA
Root Cause Analysis
Determine fundamentals
Initiating event
Contributing events

Use in design process

6 Steps
+1
 FRETT
Cause categories Failure mode sets
design errors
material defects Force
fabrication and
processing errors Reactive environment
assembly and installation
deficiencies Temperature
maintenance-related or
procedural errors
unintended operating Time
conditions
operator error
Discussion & Questions
 Corrective Action
Plan Do Check Act
process
Plan
Experiments and
measures Act Do
Verify results
Check
Document results
 An Example
Define problem

Plan response

Do experiment

Monitor results

Implement fix
 Monitor Effectiveness
What do you measure?

What can you measure?

Does absence of failure

mean its fixed?
What is expected failure
rate?
What is probability of
failure?
 Monitoring
How to determine
monitoring plan?

Sample size?

Duration?

Focus on failure
mechanism
Discussion & Questions
Example
 Repair rate over time
Trend plots Sample Data
MCF cumulative 1500 hour test
failures over time
With each failure RCA
Inter arrival times
and improvements
Reciprocals of inter
implemented
arrival times
Duane Plot
Observed failure times
5, 40, 43, 175, 389, 712,
747, 795, 1299, 1478 hrs
 Cumulative failure vs. time (MCF)
Failure count vs time

Straight line (roughly)

means steady failure
rate.
Curve down
improvement over time
Curve up increasing
problems over time

NIST Engineering Statistics Handbook 8.2.2.3

 Inter arrival failure times
Plot waiting time
between failures

Trend up
improvement
Trend down
degradation
Straight no change
over time
 Reciprocal Inter arrival times
Plot failure rate
estimates since last
failure

Trend up
degradation
Trend down
improvement
Straight no change
over time
 Duane Plot
Time Cum MTBF
5 5
40 20
43 14.3
175 43.75
389 77.8
712 118.67
747 106.7
795 99.4
1299 144.3
1478 147.8
Discussion & Questions
 Predictions & Forecasts
Risks Benefits

Might just be wrong Awareness of

probability of failure
May miss failure
mechanisms due to Awareness of what to
masking expect to fail

Unable to predict Maintenance and

everything logistics planning
 Predictions & Forecasts
Empirical models
Extension of field data
Extensions of
experiments
Extensions of vendor
data

First principle models

Difficult to create
Does it apply in this
situation
Cautions
Check assumptions
Check sensitivity

Verify models and fits

Be conservative

The further from reality

the more risk of being
wrong exists
Monitor and Adjust
All models are wrong,
some are useful

Continue to refine and

challenge any model

RCA with focus on

failure mechanisms is
key to success
Discussion & Questions
 Examining opportunities and
Summary
reliability improvement
Reliability techniques techniques for robust design
to improve performance
RCM, FMEA, RCA, 6 step and
FRETT
Developing corrective actions
and determining
effectiveness
Implementing the growth
curve technique
Fault and failure forecasting