AI Names “Best” Reliability Engineers
Kirk and Fred discuss AI-generated judgments about reliability experts and the bias that can enter those answers.
Podcasts & Media
Reliability engineering podcasts featuring Kirk Gray.
Verified Accendo Reliability episodes featuring Kirk Gray, primarily in discussion with Fred Schenkelberg. Links open the original Accendo episode pages.
Reliability is Still Important
Maintaining reliability through supplier, component, and manufacturing changes.
2 HALT Objections
Kirk and Fred discuss common objections to HALT and its value even late in product development.
Vendors and Reliability
How independent failure analysis can improve discussions with component and subsystem suppliers.
Thermal HALT
Using thermal HALT to discover marginal signal integrity and intermittent digital-system issues.
Dealing with Ongoing Changes
Reliability implications of continuing product changes during development.
Do it Right the First Time
Reliability risks associated with rework, touch-up, and additional human handling.
New Position Advice
How a reliability engineer can learn the organization, failure history, culture, and decision-making priorities in a new role.
Reliability Allocation Methods
A discussion of reliability allocation and the limits of prediction-driven methods.
When to Consider Reliability
When reliability engineering should enter the product-development process.
Environmental Testing
Standard environmental tests versus discovery-focused accelerated stress testing.
A HALT Plan Question
Why HALT planning must focus on what to stress, what to monitor, what defines failure, and how weaknesses will be improved.
ChatGPT and Reliability
Kirk and Fred discuss early uses and limitations of AI for reliability engineering guidance.
Backup Balance
Tradeoffs between redundancy, backup systems, robustness, cost, and rare conditions.
Learning about Failures
How engineers learn failure mechanisms and why many failures involve interacting physical causes.
Data and Automation of Analysis
Why field data and automation should support—not replace—physical failure analysis.
Reliability of Produce
A reliability discussion applied to degradation and preservation of fruit and vegetables.
Connect Activity to Business Objectives
Connecting reliability engineering activity to field failures, cost, business objectives, and management support.
Dealing with Suppliers
Challenges working with subsystem and component suppliers when investigating reliability failures.