Track 2 Session 7

12:00 to 1:00 p.m. Thursday, October 14, 2010

Product (Tractor) Reliability Prediction & Improvement to Achieve B(X) Life

Key drivers that distinguish successful companies include beginning with a product that totally satisfies the customer in terms of features, safety, cost, quality and long-term reliability. Therefore, it becomes essential to deliver highly reliable products faster and at low cost. While many companies have adopted low cost initiatives to lower their material and administration costs, only a select few at the top look at delivering highly reliable products at a faster rate. Almost all companies have established warranty administration systems to track their product reliability measures (unreliability); however, these warranty systems have turned out to be just cost allocation centers and, at most, are being used as input sources for their reliability improvement initiatives. Very few business and strategic benefits have been derived from the wealth of warranty data that is so easily and readily available. Most organizations sadly do not realize its importance and therefore ignore the potential benefits. In this presentation, we will talk about the product reliability prediction B(X) life, reliability vs. time, unreliability vs. time, component affecting reliability (low reliability parts), mean time to failure (MTTF), conditional reliability, failure rate, test for reliability and forecasting warranty returns. This model has been successfully implemented at Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) Limited, where predicted B(X) life and low reliability parts have been identified by the model. Work to improve the product reliability is also covered as case studies in the presentation.

Key Words: Product Reliability prediction B(X) life, Identify Low reliability part, Test for Reliability, forecasting warranty returns, conditional Reliability

A. Arokiadhasan

Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE), Chennai