Reliability Lab Testing, Consulting, Training.

Ops a la Carte

Call: (408) 654-0499, x204

Email: info@OPSaLaCarte.com

Engineering Success with Reliable Products.

Design for Safety

Design for Safety (DfS)

OBJECTIVES

Dramatic savings can occur through creative design practices that focus on inherent product risks very early in the design process, and on ways to minimize each risk factor. At a time when safety recalls are becoming an increasingly costly and damaging problem for companies in a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, production lines, and many others. This seminar reveals how significant cost savings can be obtained by designing for safety.

With a focus on writing clear, accurate safety specifications, attendees will engage in hands-on activities where they will practice balancing intuitive vs. logic-based design considerations. They will also discover risk-mitigation techniques that can be effectively implemented in their workplaces to prevent costly recalls.

Challenging the usual paradigm of “safety costs money,” this seminar also explores the creative techniques used by several famous engineering managers to increase safety and decrease costs. Other topics include accident causes and prevention, potential misuse of product, hazard analysis (including latent hazard initiation), testing, and software safety design. A copy of instructor Dev Raheja’s text Creativity: The Art of Doing Right Things Right will be provided to each participant.

Download brochure (pdf)

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This seminar will be especially valuable for:

  • Design engineers & managers
  • Research & development engineers & managers
  • Safety engineers & managers
  • Engineers in reliability and quality assurance
  • Service engineers & managers
  • Any engineer responsible for specification writing
  • Any manager responsible for safety, quality or risk management

Some experience in design will be helpful but not essential

COURSE OVERVIEW

By attending this seminar, you will be able to:

  • Predict potential accidents before the design is released
  • Design creative solutions that reduce costs and deliver higher returns
  • Write specifications that clearly define safety requirements and the desired levels of safety
  • Identify potential hazards introduced in manufacturing
  • Identify safety risks posed by product misuse
  • Prepare risk analysis reports for managers to use in decision-making

OUTLINE

Safety in Design Concepts

  • System view of safety
  • Boundaries of safety
  • Criteria for safety

Hands-On Workshop: Safety Boundaries

Theory of Accidents

  • Domino effect
  • Single causation theory
  • Multiple causation theory
  • Energy control theory

Writing Safety Specifications

  • Holistic considerations
  • Life cycle considerations
  • Abuse/misuse considerations
  • Robustness criteria for safety

Hands-On Workshop: Writing Safety Specifications

Writing Interface Specifications

  • Hardware/software interface
  • Hardware/hardware interface
  • Software/software interface
  • Software/human interface
  • Hardware/human interface

Safety Design Process to Fine-tune Specifications

  • Hazard analysis
  • Identifying hazards
  • Assessing the risk
  • Mitigating the risk
  • Cost effective control of hazards

Hands-On Workshop: Hazard Analysis

Minimizing Accidents in Early Design

  • Conceptual safety analysis
  • Logical solutions
  • Intuitive solutions
  • Innovation with high return on investment

Minimizing Accidents in Detail Design

  • Subsystem hazard analysis
  • Failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis for safety
  • Fault tree analysis
  • Operations and support hazard analysis
  • Maintenance engineering hazard analysis

Hands-on Workshop: Safety Enhancement Through Fault Tree Analysis

Minimizing Accidents in Complex Systems

  • Making use of lessons learned
  • Design for robust human interface
  • Design for robust software interface
  • Design for sneak conditions

Avoiding Latent Hazard Initiation in Manufacturing

  • Process safety hazard analysis
  • Production qualification for safety
  • Safety inputs to design
  • Design for preventing defects in production

Hands-on workshop: Designing Out Latent Unsafe Events

Testing for Safety

  • Prerequisites for developing tests
  • Accelerated testing for safety qualification
  • Safety tests in production and feedback to design
  • Tests for unexpected user related failures
  • Tests for rare events

Embedded Software Safety

  • Software system safety concepts
  • Requirements analysis for safety
  • Software hazard analysis
  • Identifying new requirements for safety

Software Safety Design Control Techniques

  • Design control techniques
  • Software preliminary hazard analysis
  • Software failure mode and effects analysis
  • Selecting structure for safety
  • Selecting architecture for safety

Call Us: (408) 654-0499, x204

Email Us: info@OPSaLaCarte.com

Address: 990 Richard Ave, Suite 101, Santa Clara, CA 95050

Contact Us

Empowering companies to create happy customers, with well-engineered products.

Script

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."