Product and Reliability

Recently you had a discussion about marketing with an experienced engineering manager.  This week you have decided to raise another issue that has been at the back of your mind.

You I am thinking about providing some sort of guarantee and repair service for our product. What do you think?

Manager How reliable is your product?

You What do you mean?

Manager Well, for example out of every one thousand you produce how many will fail in say, the first 3 or 6 months?  What do you think your productís ëbathtub curveí will look like?

You Its what curve?  I have no idea!  We havenít made many yet.   How can I reliably estimate something like that?

Manager You have a point of course.  Until you have been producing your product in large numbers for some time you canít be absolutely sure.  Itís important that you have some idea, however.   Remember it costs you money to replace or repair your product under any warranty you provide or under your legal obligations.   If your product is unserviceable it may be inconvenient or costly for your customer.  If your product develops a reputation for unreliability your reputation and sales will suffer!

You So I need to estimate the reliability of my new product so I can estimate the probable costs of unreliability?  I can see that but I still have no idea where to begin.

Manager Well you can start with the components and their reliabilities.   You can consider the way they are connected together and all the possible failure modes, their respective probabilities and their severity.  You need to find out about product reliability and something called FMEA or FMECA.

 

Learning Outcomes

Following this PBL cycle you should be able to:

o Explain the term Reliability in the context of product design and manufacture.

o Discuss the effects of reliability on product pricing and customer perceptions.

o Explain the ëbathtubí curve and its applicability to product design, manufacture and the provision of warranties.

o Carry out an FMEA or FMECA on your electronic design/product.

Resources

Library Catalogue

Search under Reliability, Product Reliability, Manufacturing Reliability, Engineering Management etc.

Internet

http://www.npd-solutions.com/fmea.html

http://www.fmeainfocentre.com/

http://www.relexsoftware.com/resources/overview.asp

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