The most Reliable products include reliability considerations throughout the design process. We teach a 1-Day workshop on Mechanical Design for Reliability (MDfR) that provides insight and guidance on this process. This course is offered in conjunction with our partner, Ops A La Carte, LLC.
Many techniques for the prediction and analysis of failures may be applied in the design process to improve the robustness of products. Accelerated testing of products and prototypes can also be valuable when trying to determine or improve service life. Techniques like HALT and HASS are used to improve design margins and make products more robust. Sensitivity to manufacturing tolerances and material variability may also be important in the assessment of reliability.
Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) is useful to verify the life of a product but in a highly compressed time frame. An understanding of the potential failure modes of the product is necessary in order to choose acceleration factors which are meaningful and do not produce a failure which is unrealistic.