Track 1 Session 9
8:00 to 9:00 a.m. Thursday June 19, 2008

Recipe for Successful Reliability Tools

"Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination and a bucketful of courage and daring; stir well and bring to a boil." This is all that is required to develop successful reliability tools. Too often, we reside in the comfort of our existing reliability toolbox, which can obstruct the obvious, dull the brain and stifle the imagination. This presentation will show innovative new reliability tools developed by modifying existing reliability tools, modifying tools from other disciplines and applying existing tools in other ways. For example, by understanding the physics behind a Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT), we have developed a modified HALT that identifies the modes we have to fix before they fail. This results in reduced testing time. We have also modified a project-management tool and applied it during the design stage to predict the probability of tolerance stack-up that can result in an interference-fit in an assembly. The presentation will also show examples of the identification of mechanical problems using acoustic tools normally used to do sound audits on equipment.