Reliability Lab Testing, Consulting, Training.

Ops a la Carte

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Email: info@OPSaLaCarte.com

Engineering Success with Reliable Products.

Reliability Block Diagrams

Reliability Block Diagramming (RBD)

DEFINITION

Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD’s) establish system reliability on a modular/block basis rather than a component basis using a block diagram approach.

SITUATION

For complex systems, RBD’s make the reliability of a system much easier to understand, expose weaknesses much quicker, and make what-if analyses much easier.

OBJECTIVES

To develop a reliability model using blocks or modules to make the model easier to understand and change.

VALUE TO YOUR ORGANIZATION

Used early in a design cycle, it allocates reliability among blocks, guiding architecture and design decisions to achieve an overall system reliability requirement.

Used on established designs, it sorts every component into blocks according to their function to expose the distribution of failure rates.

RELIABILITY INTEGRATION

An example of Reliability Integration during Reliability Block Diagramming (RBD) is as follows:

Information from Reliability Block Diagrams feed directly into design decisions

If the block diagram concludes that the only way to meet the design goal is to add redundancy, then this becomes input to the design early on so that cost and schedule impacts are kept to a minimum.

METHODOLOGY

We start out with a high level BOM or functional block diagram and from that, we establish redundancy paths and assign an MTBF to each block. We make this assignment from vendor data, past products, benchmarking, and a variety of other means. Then we calculate the total system reliability based on each block.

CASE STUDIES/OPTIONS

The following case studies and options provide example approaches. We shall tailor our approach to meet your specific situation.

  1. RDB’s Make Understanding Reliability of Complex Systems Easier

    For a Networking company with a highly complex core switch, we developed a reliability block diagram to make the reliability of the system easier to understand.

  2. Using RDB’s to Help Drive Design Decisions

    A Medical Device company had a system comprised of many blocks. We developed a Reliability Block diagram to help them understand the driving forces of reliability early in a design effort and created a functional block diagram to determine where to concentrate design efforts.

  3. Using RDB’s to Drive Redundancy Decisions

    A Military contractor had a specific reliability goal in mind and had a choice of using redundancies but needed to make this decision very early in the design process. We developed a Reliability Block Diagram for them and showed them where they could take advantage of redundancies to meet their goals.

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OPS A La Carte, Engineering Success with Reliable Products. We are a leading reliability engineering consulting firm since 2001. We have helped many companies create robust products and elevate them to great success, even become the leader in their industry. We are known for providing the whole gamut of reliability lab testing, consulting, and training. With over 25 reliability engineer-experts around the world, with diverse backgrounds and experience, we serve both domestic and global businesses in all areas of reliability, in depth and width. Hi, my name is Jay Muns, owner and CEO. I have more than 30 years of experience in engineering and business operations.

OPS A La Carte have produced very high-quality results for us, with fast turnaround times. Their engineers are the best in their field, are a pleasure to work with, and their work is of the highest standards available. This has helped us obtain critical product approvals…” We help companies see from outside of their forest and understand what they didn’t know before. Companies come to us out of three scenarios: First, when their products fail. We help put out the fire by identifying problems and providing solutions. Second, after a product is designed, to check the box and move on with getting their product into the marketplace. The best is third: to get engaged early, by including reliability as a part of their initial product design goals. This will save time, money and energy. It is much better to have a worry-free product that addresses reliability issues upfront, than dealing with deficiencies after a product is developed, or worse, already manufactured and sold to the end users. Being proactive with reliability engineering will save a business tons of money and trouble. In all scenarios, you receive professional expertise with integrity and at a fair price. Many of our clients are repeat customers for years because of the value we consistently deliver.

Our ENGINEER-consultants each have over 20 years of experience and perform lab testing, consulting and training based on actual reliability science. They follow well established industry standards, such as “HALT” (highly accelerated life test,) and “HASS” (highly accelerated stress screen.) These engineers evaluate, make recommendations and validate results based on highly relevant lab data, co-relating to real world data. Whether your company has a reliability department or not, you can take advantage of our entire testing-consulting-training package, or any portion of it. We also offer Failure analysis and safety certification services such as UL, CE, and other environmental testing services, like solar, UV, SALT spray testing, ESD (electro-static discharge,) and EMC (electro-magnetic compatibility.)

“Ops A La Carte trained us to use HALT methodology as a proactive tool, to root out key failures in our early and advanced prototypes, and that made it possible for us to deliver dependability that our customers demand, in pilot and production units."“...OPS has played a key role in our evolution from a research company to a manufacturer of ‘mission-critical’ components.” A couple of companies describe our HALT/HASS training as “highly informative, engaging and exciting.” “The benefit far exceeds the price."

Our mission is to enable companies to create their happy customers, with a well-engineered product. By helping our clients understand the real problems and the real solutions, we help improve their careers and reputations. Achieving the win-win-win results for our clients and their customers is our ultimate satisfaction. We have a family-like company culture with positive energy and great teamwork. An improved and reliable product is our own small way to contribute to a better humanity and a slightly better world. Call us at (408) 654-0499, or email us at info@opsalacarte.com, or visit our website www.opsalacarte.com. Thank you!

A couple of our clients' testimonials:

"The expert team at OPS assisted us in evaluating the available reliability testing possibilities, and with their help, we crafted a customized test program precisely sized to meet the needs of our project. The resulting program proved to our team, our customers, and our regulatory auditors that our product was robust, met its reliability goals effectively, and satisfied all safety risk factors."

"...Ops A La Carte worked with us to develop a testing program based on HALT and HASS to effectively assess low-temperature operation capability and screen the boards for assembly and component defects. They then facilitated and supported the HALT and HASS testing effort. It was quicker and more efficient than we had expected. The boards for the first four strings have been delivered. We are looking forward to working with them through completion of the project."