Linking the future to the past: closing the loop between yesterday´s failures and tomorrow´s solutions

One of the key challenges faced by reliability engineers is how to store reliability and maintainability (R&M) information about their company´s products in a form that is truly useful during the early stages of subsequent new product development efforts. This paper describes a project undertaken by the authors to accomplish this by linking a commercially available reliability and maintainability analysis suite to the company´s existing field R&M data. The primary focus of this effort was the effective application of historical lessons learned and field R&M information to new product development. This project resulted in the development of a “drag and drop” approach to developing experience-based R&M and LCC analyses that delivers the following results. Preliminary reliability, maintainability and availability estimates for new machines can be made in under an hour. These estimates can be sorted to identify each new machine´s likely R&M drivers. A preliminary machinery failure modes and effects analysis, sorted by risk priority number, can be produced for review by a cross-functional team in less than 1/2 day. A life cycle cost estimate for a machine, linked to the R&M model, can be prepared in about two hours. LCC estimates for alternate design approaches can be prepared in as little as a few minutes for a simple change, or in a few hours for more complex changes. Reports that identify the design verification and validation activities, manufacturing quality control or supplier controls required to ensure machine reliability are automatically generated from the FMEA