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Reliability Engineering Training

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Reliability Engineering Training Crash Course

Reliability-Training-Course

Reliability Engineering Training  is part of TONEX Quality and Reliability Engineering Training Programs providing a solid educational foundation for both practitioners and researchers in Q&R field including domains such as Reliability and Maintainability Engineering, six sigma methods, lead free electronics, warranty analysis/management, physics of failure and risk analysis.

Reliability is a measure of uncertainty and therefore estimating reliability means using statistics and probability theory. Reliability is quality over time. Reliability must be designed into a product or service.

Most important aspect of reliability is to identify cause of failure and eliminate in design if possible otherwise identify ways of accommodation. The costs of unreliability can be damaging to an organization.

Reliability Engineering as an integrated approach to systems and product development presents an integrated and systematic approach to the planning, design, engineering, and management of reliability activities throughout the life cycle of a product or a system, including concept, research and development, design, manufacturing, assembly, sales, and service.

Reliability Engineering training focuses on principles of performance evaluation and prediction to on eliminate maintenance requirements and improve product and systems safety, reliability and maintainability.  Learn about reliability requirements specifications, design review and control, reliability prediction, estimation, and methodology, basic concepts such as MTBF, MTTR, MTTF, FMEA (failure mode effects and analysis), FMECA, FTA, RDB,  reliability  planning, operation, analysis of reliability testing and field failures, mathematical models, role of human factors in reliability, reliability databases and information systems for failure analysis, design and performance improvement and reliability program management for  the entire product and system life cycle.

A=MTBF/(MTBF+MTTR) sounds familiar. Reliability engineering training is a hands on course with many examples and exercises including:

Useful Formulas

  1. R(t) = e -(t/MTBF) where R-reliability, e = 2.718, t= useful life of the unit
  2. MTBF= T/R ; T = total time; R = number of failures
  3. MTTF= T/N ; T = total time ; N = Number of units under test.
  4. Total MTBF time is ( # of units tested X  Time on )/no of failures

What is Reliability?

Reliability refers to unexpected failures of products, processes, or services and allows understanding why these failures occur.

  • Reliability demonstrates the amount of uncertainty and thus measuring reliability means applying statistics and probability theory
  • Reliability is defined as quality over time
  • Reliability must be designed into a product or service
  • Most crucial factor of reliability is to detect cause of failure and remove it in design if possible, otherwise determine ways of adjustment
  • Reliability refers to the ability of an item to conduct a particular function without failure under controlled conditions for a defined period of time
  • The costs of poor reliability or unreliability can be extraordinary t

The main reasons why failures might occur include:

  • The product is not suitable for purpose or more precisely the design is essentially incapable
  • The element could be overstressed at some level
  • Failures could be caused by wear-out
  • Failures might be caused by variation
  • Failures might be caused by wrong specifications
  • Failures might be caused by misuse of the item
  • Items are designed for a specific operating environment and if they are then used outside this environment then failure can occur.

The Objectives of Reliability Engineering

  • To use engineering expertise to avoid or decrease the possibilities or frequency of failures
  • To determine and correct the causes of failure
  • To identify ways of dealing with failures
  • To employ methods of approximating the reliability of new designs, and for assessing reliability data

Why is Reliability Important?

Lack of reliability leads to several harmful, undesirable consequences and thus for many products and services is a severe threat. Some of implications of poor reliability include (but not limited to):

  • Competitiveness
  • Profit margins
  • Cost of repair and maintenance
  • Delays further up supply chain
  • Reputation
  • Good will
  • Safety

Basic Principals of Reliability Analysis

  • Identify the most important elements
  • Use available data from previous design and analysis
  • Establish base condition for component
  • Define performance modes in terms of past levels of unsatisfactory performance
  • Calibrate models to experience
  • Model reasonable maintenance and repair scenarios and alternatives

Measuring Reliability

  • Requirements
  • The bathtub curve
  • Life distributions
  • Modeling system reliability
  • Reliability predictions

Non-Probabilistic Reliability Methods

  • Historical Frequency of Occurrence
  • Survivorship Curves (hydropower equipment)
  • Expert Opinion Elicitation

Design Reliability

  • Product life cycle
  • Reliability tools and techniques
    • FTA
    • Reliability block diagram
    • Event tree analysis
    • FMEA
    • Physics of Failure
  • Reliability testing
    • Accelerated life testing
    • Reliability enhancement testing or HALT
    • Demonstration testing
    • Environmental Stress Screening
    • Reliability Growth/Enhancement h Planning
  • FRACAS
  • In-service data analysis
  • Risk analysis
  • REMM

Audience

Reliability engineering training is a 3-day course designed for:

  •  Reliability  engineers
  • Mechanical engineers
  • Electrical engineers
  • Software engineers
  • Applied statistics analytic
  • Product Managers
  • Project Managers
  • Production supervisors

Reliability Engineering Training- Crash Course, A 3-day Reliability Engineering Bootcamp, Click Here for Details

Learn about:

  • Probability life distributions for reliability analysis
  • Process control and process capability
  • Failure modes, mechanisms, and effects analysis
  • Health monitoring and prognostics
  • Reliability tests and reliability estimation
  • Probability life distributions for reliability analysis
  • Process control and process capability

Topics Covered:

Principles behind Reliability and  Reliability Engineering

  • Motivation and Needs
  • Why Do We Need Reliability?
  • Improve the design of a product
  • Reduce life cycle cost
  • Logistics spares
  • Introducing failure & risk in early design
  • What is Failure Rate (λ)?
  • The Bathtub Curve
  • Reliability engineering
  • Role of reliability engineers
  • When does something fail?
  • Failure rate
  • Mean time to failure
  • Why does it fail?
  • Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
  • Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
  • Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD)
  • Mean Time to Failure (MTTF)
  • How can the likelihood of failure be reduced?
  • System and product redesign
  • Improved manufacturing processes
  • Maintenance & inspection
  • Analysis of potential failures and associated risks
  • Systematic, standardized & robust treatment of failures and risks
  • Enabling trade studies during early design
  • Early stage design
  • Enabling system-level design & analysis
  • Increase robustness of final integrated architecture
  • Design and optimize as a system

Reliability in Engineering Practices

  • Reliability and Systems Engineering
  • Reliability and System Effectiveness
  • Principles behind MTBF, MTTF, MTTR, and Availability
  • System Life-Cycle Conditions
  • Reliability as a Relative Measure
  • Performance, Quality, and Reliability
  • Consequences of Failure
  • Basic Reliability Concepts
  • Probability Density Function
  • Expected Life or Mean Time to Failure

Probability and Life Distributions for Reliability Analysis

  • Design for Six Sigma
  • Product Development
  • Product Life Cycle Conditions
  • Integrated Reliability and Safety Analysis Models
  • Reliability and System Life Cycle
  • Relationship of Reliability and Maintainability to System Effectiveness
  • System “Operational” Effectiveness
  • The Concept of “Operational” Reliability
  • Reliability Requirements
  • Availability as a Function of Equipment
  • Maintainability and Mean Life
  • Definition of System Operational Requirements

Reliability Analyses

  • Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Feedback
  • Redundancy for Reliability Improvement
  • Faults versus Failures
  • Physics of Failure
  • Model Analysis of Failure Mechanisms
  • Reliability Prediction
  • MIL-HDBK-217 (Electronic )
  • Telcordia (Electronic)
  • NSWC (Mechanical)
  • IEC 62380 – RDF 2000 (Electronic)
  • China 299B (Electronic)
  • Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
  • Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
  • Reliability Block Diagram (RBD)
  • Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
  • Minimal Cut Sets
  • Event Tree Analysis (ETA)
  • Binary Decision Diagram (BDD)
  • Markov Analysis (MKV)
  • MIL-HDBK-472 (MTTR)
  • Manufacture and Assembly
  • Product Requirements and Constraints
  • Life-Cycle Conditions
  • Life-Cycle Events
  • Loads and Their Effects
  • Reliability Capability
  • Parts Selection and Management
  • Failure Modes, Mechanisms, and Effects Analysis (FMMEA)
  • Development of FMMEA
  • Potential Failure Modes
  • Failure Mechanism Prioritization
  • Probabilistic Design for Reliability and the Factor of Safety
  • Derating and Uprating
  • Reliability Estimation Techniques
  • Process Control and Process Capability
  • Product Screening and Burn-In Strategies
  • Analyzing Product Failures and Root Causes
  • Root-Cause Analysis Processes
  • System Reliability Modeling
  • Health Monitoring and Prognostics
  • Warranty Analysis

Reliability and Life Cycle Asset Management

  • Reliability Management
  • Reliability program management
  • Reliability design techniques
  • Testing during development
  • Product testing
  • Maintainability And Availability
  • Management strategies
  • Maintenance and testing analysis
  • Data Collection And Use
  • Data collection
  • Failure analysis and correction
  • Risk in Early Design (RED) Methodology
  • Identify and assess risks during conceptual product design
  • Effectively communicate risks
  • Improved Reliability
  • Decreased cost associated with design changes
  • Risk Management
  • PHA (Preliminary hazards analysis)
  • CA (Criticality analysis)
  • Maintainability information
  • Reliability Engineer Responsibilities and Duties

Course Book:

Reliability Engineering

Kailash C. Kapur, Michael Pecht
ISBN: 978-1-118-14067-3
April 2014

Test your knowledge in Reliability related topics:

1) A system was up and working for 10,000 hours. During this period, 5 breakdowns were detected. What is the average or Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) for this system.

  1. 9995 hours
  2. 10005 hours
  3. 2000 hours
  4. None of the above

2) ________ is literally the average time elapsed from one failure to the next.  Usually people think of it as the average time that something works until it fails and needs to be exchanged or repaired (again).

  1. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
  2. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
  3. Mean Time To Failures (MTTF)
  4. Total down time

3) _____________is the average time that it takes to repair something after a failure.

  1. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
  2. Total down time
  3. Mean Time To Failures (MTTF)
  4. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

4) ________ for repairable devices can be defined as the sum of MTTF plus MTTR. In other words, the it is the time from one failure to another.  This distinction is important if the repair time is a significant fraction of MTTF.

  1. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
  2. Mean Time To Failures (MTTF)
  3. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
  4. Total down time

5) A light bulb in a chandelier is not repairable so light bulb will be replaced when it fails).  The MTTF for the light bulb is 10,000 hours.  The reliability for the light bulb is calculated as 81.2%. What does this mean?

  1. 2% of the units will still be failure free. 18.8 % will have failed.
  2. 8 % of the units will still be failure free. 81.2% will have failed.
  3. 100% of the light bulbs will fail after 1880 hours of operation.
  4. 100% of the light bulbs will fail after 8120 hours of operation.

6) Without oil changes, an automobile’s engine may fail after 150 hours of highway driving – that is the ______________.

  1. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
  2. Mean Time To Failures (MTTF)
  3. Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
  4. Total down time

7) Assuming it takes 6 hours to remove and replace a pump and MTBF of the pump is 5000 hours. What is the MTTF for this failure?

  1. 4994 hours
  2. 5006 hours
  3. 4669 hours
  4. 5012 hours

8) The relationship between failure rates, predicted reliability, and MTBF can be summed up with the exponential formula

What is the predicted reliability for a unit that has a useful life of 5 years and an MTBF rating of 500,000 hours?  (a year=365 days)

  1. 961
  2. 916
  3. 786
  4. 100,000

9) Suppose 10 power supply devices were  tested for 500 hours. During the test 2 failures occur.

What is the MTBF of the power supply?

  1. 2000 hours/failures
  2. 2500 hours/failures
  3. 100 hours/failures
  4. none of the above

10) What is the MTTF of the same power supply?

  1. 500 hours/failures
  2. 100 hours/failures
  3. 5000 hours/failures
  4. none of the above

11) The useful life of a device is guaranteed as 2.3 years at 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week,356 days/year.   150 units were run for the useful life of the device in a lab and 50 units failed during the last hour.

What is the MTBF for this device?

  1. 10,000
  2. 15,000
  3. 60,000
  4. 100,000

12)  If a UAV takes an average of six months to fail and it takes 20 minutes, on average, to return the UAV  to its operational state , what is the then the UAV availability?

  1. 99,9992%
  2. 99,992%
  3. 92%
  4. 2%

13) Which of the following logical laws is true?

  1. A + (B + C) = (A + B) • C
  2. A + (B • C) = A + B •  A + C
  3. A • (B + C) = (A • B) + (A • C)
  4. A • (A + B) = B

14) _________ is a systems analysis tool. It offers a wide range of capabilities. It calculates system failure, frequency values and unavailability. In addition to component libraries, commonly used failure models can be stored and retrieved for repeated use.

  1. Reliability Block Diagram (RBD)
  2. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
  3. The MIL-217
  4. NSWC

15) _________is a systems reliability assessment tool, which focuses on failure path representation. It provides a wide variety of both qualitative and quantitative information about the system reliability and availability and are used during Reliability and Safety Risk Assessments to graphically represent the logical interaction and probabilities of occurrence of component failures and other events in a system.

  1. Reliability Block Diagram (RBD)
  2. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
  3. The MIL-217
  4. NSWC

16) _______ supports two methods of reliability prediction, calculates the failure rates and MTBF for electronic components, sub-systems, and systems. It can aid in locating areas for potential reliability improvement, as described in  Part Stress and Analysis and Parts Count. The Part Stress Analysis requires more detailed information and is usually applicable later in the design phase. The Parts Count generally requires less information, typically part quantities, quality levels and the application environment. It is most applicable early in the design phase and during proposal formulation.

  1. Reliability Block Diagram (RBD)
  2. Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
  3. The MIL-217
  4. NSWC

16) ________ uses a series of models for various categories of mechanical components to predict failure rates based on temperature, stresses, flow rates and various other parameters. It provides models for various types of mechanical devices including springs, bearings, seals, motors, brakes and clutches. It  is a relatively new standard, and is currently the only one of its kind and is a commonly used model for mechanical components. Standard procedures for predicting the reliability of mechanical components, sub-systems and systems are defined in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Handbook of Reliability Prediction Procedures for Mechanical Equipment.

  1. Telcordia (Bellcore)
  2. IEC 62380 (RDF 2000)
  3. The MIL-217
  4. NSWC

For the answers CLICK HERE

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