Sample Size — Success Testing

One of the most often asked questions of reliability professionals (or statisticians) is related to how many samples for a test? This typically is not an easy question to resolve without some work and knowledge of the testing in question. We are often asked anyway, and…

Basic Statistics

Understanding the math is critical not only for the exam, but it is also important for your ability to function as a reliability professional.

Most of us did not enjoy our undergraduate statistics course. It was just another course to endure as part of being in an…

Reliability Function

As one of the four key functions related to reliability engineering, the reliability function is often confused or misunderstood. Let’s spend a few minutes exploring the reliability function and how to use it.

Engineering Management

As 12% of the CRE exam this is a major section, yet not a very difficult one. There are three basic areas:

• strategic management
• reliability program management
• ethics, safety, and reliability

Reliability Apportionment

Diverging from reliability statistics for a post or two, let’s consider one way which R(t), reliability at time, t, is useful during the design phase of a product. Apportionment is the breakdown or allocation of reliability goals or objectives to elements within the product.

Statistical Terms about Variation

“Statistics is the language of variation.” I’m sure that is a quote by someone, not me, though. It is true. Statistics is all about variation. In this post let’s explore some of the ways statisticians talk about data and specifically the amount of dispersion in the data.

The Four Functions

Four Functions

There are four functions related to life distributions of importance to reliability engineering.

Nearly all textbooks on reliability either introduce or use these functions. Likewise, nearly every calculation related to…

Role of Reliability Statistics

Generally, I do not talk about statistics before 10am — it’s not polite.

As a reliability professional, statistics is a central feature of the value I bring to the team. And, not just the reliability statistics, all stats. It continues to amaze me…

Statistical Terms

This is hopefully completely a review. The mastery of basic statistical terms is important as many of the questions on the CRE are statistical in nature and rely on your understanding the terms. Let’s simply review the terms, and do let me know if you have any questions.

Getting Started

I’ve learned a lot in my career and have attempted to help others to the best of my ability. Teaching is fun. It is also enjoyable…