Example Project: Reliability GAP Analysis

A leading manufacturer of medical sample storage systems were experiencing higher than expected reliability issues at customer sites and called upon Wilde’s Reliability Engineering expertise to support the development of their Reliability Engineering processes

Wilde Risk Management carried out a 2 day on site gap analysis, which looked to identify the current position of a company as they looked to implement a reliability programme.

In order to effectively implement a Design for Reliability programme, it was necessary to perform the initial reliability activities in the development process, as these form the foundations of the later work.

Data was collected on reported failures; however, this was being recorded on a number of different independent systems and there were concerns that not all of the required information was being captured. It was recommended that this information should be centralised into a common database.

Initial MTBF values for the system were calculated based on the available data. These values provided a good overall indicator of a complete system, but it was recommended that more detailed metrics were pursued to ensure that a change in failure rate was recognised.

To implement the reliability programme, a select number of the most valuable tasks were performed first, and to a high standard. key tasks included:

• Setting of Requirements and Goals
• Reliability Allocation
• Baseline Reliability
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
• Implementation of a robust FRACAS