Reliability culture : how leaders can create organizations that create reliable products / Adam P. Bahret, Apex Ridge Reliability, Massachusetts, USA.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Table of Contents
Series Editor’s Foreword by Dr. Andre Kleyner xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction xv

1 The Product Development Challenge 1

Key Players 1

Follow the Carrot or Get Out of the Race 3

It’s Not That I’m Lazy, It’s That I Just Don’t Care 5

Product-specification Profiles 8

Product Drivers 9

Bounding Factors 10

Reliability Discipline 11

References 15

2 Balancing Business Goals and Reliability 17

Return on Investment 17

Program Accounting 18

Rule of 10s 20

Design for Reliability 21

Reliability Engineer’s Responsibility to Connect to the Business Case 23

Role of the Reliability Professional 26

Summary 28

References 29

3 Directed Product Development Culture 31

The Past, Present, and Future of Reliability Engineering 32

Influences 32

The Invention of “Inventing” 33

Quality and Inventing Are Behaviors 34

As Always, WWII Changed Everything 35

The Postwar Influence Diminishes 36

The Emergence of Japan 37

Reliability Is No Longer a Luxury 38

Understand the Intent 39

Levels of Awareness 40

Summary 41

References 42

4 Awakening 43

Stage 1 43

Stage 2 43

Stage 3 44

Stage 4 44

The Ownership Chart 44

Comparing Charts 45

Benefits of the Ownership Chart 45

Communicating Clearly 50

Behind the Words at Work 51

When You Want to Improve 53

My Personal Case 53

Getting the Message Across 54

The Importance of Time 54

When We Can’t Communicate at the Organizational Level 55

When Scheduling Trumps Testing 57

Summary 58

5 Goals and Intentions 61

Testing Intent 61

Testing to Improve 61

Quick Question 61

Ownership 62

Fear-driven Testing 62

Transferring Ownership 63

Leadership and Transference 64

Objectives and Transference 65

What Transferred Ownership Looks Like 67

The Benefits of Successful Transference 67

A Racing Bike Analogy 68

Guided by All the Goals All the Time 69

The Roadmap Conundrum 69

Why We Embrace Tunnel Vision 69

When No One Has a Plan 69

Summary 70

References 70

6 New Roles 71

Role of Change Agents 71

Reliability Czar 72

The Czar is a Link 73

Direct Input 74

Distilling Information 74

Who is the Czar? 74

How the Czar Works with the Team and Leadership 76

Tips for the Czar 77

Role of Facilitators 78

Facilitation Technique 78

Creating a Narrative 80

Role of Reliability Professionals 80

Stop Asking for Resources 81

Connect Reliability to the Market 81

Summary 83

7 Program Assessment 85

Measurements 85

What to Measure 86

Using Reliability Testing as Program Guidance 86

The Primary Wear-out Failure Mode 88

The Random Fail Rate During Use Life 90

Reliability Maturity Assessments 90

Steps for an Assessment 91

The Team 92

The Topics 93

The Scoring 94

Analyze: The Reliability Maturity Matrix 94

Review with the Team and Summarize 95

Recommend Actions 98

Assess Particular Areas in More Detail 98

Golden Nuggets 98

Summary 99

References 99

8 Reliability Culture Tools 101

Advancing Culture 101

Manipulative Managing 101

Manipulative Management in Action 102

An Alternative to Manipulation 102

Transfer Why 103

Reliability Bounding 103

Fire and Forget 103

Reliability Feedback 104

Strategy Bounding 104

Strategy Bounding Toolkit 104

Midprogram Feedback 105

The Bounding Number 105

Bounding ROI 106

Invest and Return Tables 107

Deciding by Bounding 110

Anchoring 110

Closed Loop Control 112

Open Loop Control 112

Intent Anchor 113

Delivery Anchor 114

The Value of Anchoring 115

Focus Rotation 115

The Focus Rotation Steps 115

Working in Freedom and with Ownership 116

The Gore Example 117

Why Don’t All Companies Do This? 118

Summary 118

9 Guiding the Program in Motion 119

Guidance Bounding 119

Guidance Bounding ROI 120

The Plan 120

The Issue 120

Technology Cascade 120

Timing is Everything 121

Our Choice 121

Using Bounding 121

The Results 122

Program Risk Effects Analysis 122

What Now? 123

Just Let It Go 123

Fully Access Risk 124

Program Freezes Don’t Work 124

The Chill Phase 125

PREA Tables and Calculations 126

Summary 130

10 Risk Analysis Guided Project Management 131

Failure Mode Effects Analysis Methodology 131

Design Failure Mode Effects Analysis 132

Have an Experienced Facilitator Who Is Only Facilitating 132

The Facilitator Should Not Be the Scribe or “Spreadsheet Master” 132

Don’t Let Conversations Go So Deep that 90% of the Room Is Just Listening Without Being Able to Contribute 133

Make a Scoring System that Is Meaningful, Not Standardized 133

The Scoring Is Comparative, Not Absolute 133

Reliability Design Risk Summary 134

The Objective of RDRS 134

Three Ranking Factors 135

Scoring and Evaluation 135

The Benefits of RDRS 136

Process Failure Mode Effects Analysis 136

Use Failure Mode Effects Analysis 136

Failure Reporting and Corrective Action System 137

Root Cause Analysis 138

Reaching a Wrong Conclusion 138

Reaching the Right Conclusion 138

The Stages of RCA 139

Brainstorming 140

Fundamentals of Brainstorming 140

Preparing for a Session 141

Select Participants 141

Draft a Background Memo 141

Create a List of Lead Questions 141

Three Simple Brainstorming Warm-ups 141

Setting Session Rules 142

Variations on Classic Brainstorming 142

Summary 143

References 144

11 The Reliability Program 145

Reliability Program Plan 145

Common Reliability Program Plan Pitfalls 146

The Plan Doesn’t Account for a Broad Audience 146

Not Including Return on Investment (ROI) 146

Too Much 147

Too Little 147

Major Elements of a Reliability Program Plan 149

Purpose 149

Scope 150

Acronyms and Definitions 150

Product Description 151

Design for Reliability (DfR) 151

Reliability Goals 152

Use Case, Environment, Uptime 153

Recommended Tools by Program Phase 154

Design Risk Analysis 155

Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) 155

Reliability Allocation Model 157

Testing 159

Summary 166

12 Sustained Culture 167

Lasting Change 167

The Seven-stage Process 167

Summary 168

Index 171

"Most technology companies understand the importance of reliability when it comes to product development. The testing tools, analysis methods, etc. The problem with the implementation of reliability often doesn't come from the engineers; it often comes from the organizational leaders. The leaders don't translate all the factors of the program, time to market, cost point, features, and reliability to the teams in the same manner that the company holds these goals. The result is released products that don't match the carefully crafted product specifications when in the customer's hands. This book shows senior leadership how to build a culture that is both centered around reliability and can generate impressive profits. They don't have to compromise. Leadership will see how their actions affect product development in a new light. They will be introduced to new methods that will immediately enable them to have those crafted product specifications translate into matching highly reliable products. This book will also be a breath of fresh air for reliability engineers and managers; they will see their daily struggle identified, clearly summarized, and methods for advancing their passionate struggle. New methods that they can incorporate and promote in their organizations will be clearly explained so they can begin this process"-- Provided by publisher.

About the Author
Adam P. Bahret, is Founder of Apex Ridge Reliability, a reliability engineering consulting firm. He has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University and is a Certified Reliability Engineer and a member of ASQ and IEEE. He has spoken at conferences such as RAMS, ASTR, and Reliability Days. Mr. Bahret is author of the second edition of How Reliable is Your Product: 50 Ways to Improve Product Reliability.