The other day I was thinking about my Reliability Blog and it led to my thinking about CURVES, especially those most common in Reliability Engineering. We regularly use the Gaussian function and the Weibull Chart, but as far as my experience goes, the Bathtub Curve has been the most popular way to visually summarize the lifetime expectations of just about everything. Then, looking at the curve I could not avoid noting that it uses words most common in personal daily life: Infant Mortality, Useful Life and End of Life, and that stimulated thought on life at the beginning, middle and end. Then Rob Reiner’s 1989 Movie, “When Harry met Sally” popped into my head, not only as a way of getting your attention, but because anyone who saw the movie can undoubtedly recall “that” scene where Sally …
Bulbgate
“Shedding some light on Bulbgate” (Gail Collins, New York Times) This recent article in my local newspaper reminded me that media people do not necessarily have the scientific background to understand an issue. Ever since the announcement that Incandescent light bulbs will be banned in 2012 I have wondered how to get this issue into the right perspective. I am all for energy efficiency when the facts are clearly presented but in this case we have people that passed math but slept through science. What should it tell us when the world’s oldest Incandescent light bulb has been burning for 109 years? Context, please. A statement that needs to be questioned, because of the lack of scientific context, is: “Fluorescent and LED lamps will save more energy when we use them to replace …
Design News: Toyota Problem “Unforeseeable”?
Design News, January 28, 2010: "Toyota's sticking gas pedal was an almost-unforeseeable problem, experts say, and the best course of action now is for engineers to ensure that drivers can handle the failure if it happens again." Q. I would like to hear how the Reliability Engineering community feels about this. Was it unforeseeable? How can we "ensure that drivers can handle the failure" if the failure is unforeseeable? Other manufacturers using throttle-by-wire added software that uses a signal from the brake pedal to override the signal from the gas pedal. Apparently someone foresaw the problem. Q. As more and more of the functions of the driver are gradually taken over by computerized equipment, with the long term goal of eliminating the driver's participation entirely, how …
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