Reliability

The Belcan Reliability Engineering Section consists of industry experts with vast experience in Reliability Engineering who apply a precision approach to the systematic application of time-honored engineering principles and techniques throughout a product lifecycle which is an essential component of a good Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) program. The Belcan Reliability Engineering goal is to evaluate the inherent reliability of a product or process and provide potential solutions for reliability improvement throughout the various phases of the life cycle (design, test, production, warranty, operational, and wearout). Our engineers work in assessing, preventing, managing, and eliminating the impact a failure has to a system.

Some of the tools used by Belcan's Reliability Engineering Section are listed below:

FMEA/FMECA

Belcan's Reliability Engineering Section conducts failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), and uses this procedure to determine potential failure modes within a system for classification by severity (FMECA) or determination of the effect of failures on the system. Belcan tailors and applies this procedure in various phases of the product life cycle. Failure modes are any errors or defects in a process, design, or item, especially those that affect the customer, and can be potential or actual. Effects analysis refers to studying the consequences of those failures.

FRACAS

Belcan's Reliability Engineers provide their customers with a Failure Reporting Analysis and Corrective Action System (FRACAS) used to record all failures and problems related to a product or process and their associated root causes and failure analyses in order to assist in identifying and implementing corrective actions. The idea of a formalized FRACAS has traditionally been applied to hardware systems and products, but it can effectively be applied to all types of products (including software and service) and processes (i.e., administrative, billing, design, manufacturing, etc.).

Fault Tree Analysis

Belcan's Reliability Engineers use Fault Tree analysis to determine system reliability.

A Fault Tree analysis is a deductive procedure for determining the various combinations of hardware and software failures and human errors that could result in the occurrence of specified undesired events (referred to as top events) at the system level. A deductive analysis begins with a general conclusion, then attempts to determine the specific causes of this conclusion. This is often described as a "top down" approach.

Weibull Analysis

Belcan's Reliability Engineers use of life data analysis (also called "Weibull analysis") attempts to make predictions about the life of all products in the population by "fitting" a statistical distribution to life data from a representative sample of units.

This parameterized distribution for the data set can then be used to estimate important life characteristics of the product such as reliability or probability of failure at a specific time, the mean life for the product, and failure rate. Belcan's Reliability Engineers use of life data analysis requires the following actions:

• Gather life data for the product.
• Select a lifetime distribution that will fit the data and model the life of the product.
• Estimate the parameters that will fit the distribution to the data.
• Generate plots and results that estimate the life characteristics, like reliability or mean life, of the product.

Monte Carlo Simulations

Belcan's Reliability Engineers can provide complex system analysis and optimization for any process or product using Monte Carlo Simulation studies. These studies can provide system reliability, maintainability, and availability results including mean times, failure rates, and availability. “What if” studies may be used to optimize the system and provide solutions that will improve system cost and time goals.

Reliability Growth Analysis

Belcan's Reliability Engineers use Reliability Growth Analysis (RGA) to analyze developmental testing data to quantify the reliability growth of each change in the design. RGA is also used to analyze field data and calculate the optimum overhaul times for field repairable systems.

Tools Specific to Processes

Gauge Repeatability and Reproducibility (R&R)

Belcan uses the concept of gauge R & R to ensure stable measurements where a single person gets the exact same results each and every time they measure and/or collect data measurements. This can be necessary to ensure data consistency and stability. This tool provides an approximation of the variation and percent of process variation for the total measurement system and its component's repeatability, reproducibility and part to part variations.

Statistical Process Control

Belcan uses Statistical Process Control (SPC) to determine if a process is in control, able to produce consistent parts, and capable of producing parts within design specification. Control charts enable the use of objective criteria for distinguishing background variation from events of significance based on statistical techniques. Much of its power lies in the ability to monitor both process center and its variation about that center. By collecting data from samples at various points within the process, variations in the process that may affect the quality of the end product or service can be detected and corrected, thus reducing waste as well as the likelihood that problems will be passed on to the customer.

PFMEA

Belcan's Reliability Engineering Section conducts process failure modes and effects analysis (PFMEA) and uses this procedure to determine potential failure modes within a system process to determine the effect of failures on the system. Failure modes are any errors or defects in the process, especially those that affect the production of the component, and can be potential or actual.