TABLE OF CONTENTS Expect what you inspect.
An old inspector's saying
Approximately twenty years ago, the company where I was employed sponsored a workshop focusing exclusively on reliability. When the workshop and its subject were announced, I was a little surprised. There were already a large number of engineers actively engaged in "reliability" related activities. I thought that most people already understood and supported "reliability" as a core value. I wondered why a "Reliability Workshop" was needed.
Now, twenty years later, I have a much better answer to that question. Many if not most companies still need to have a reliability workshop, and the objectives of each workshop should attempt to answer the question, "What level of reliability do I have a right to expect?" To answer that question, companies must first understand all the elements that affect "reliability" and then evaluate how well they are dealing with each of them.
"What you have a right to expect" is the result of the reliability characteristics that were designed and built-in to your systems and equipment, and have been preserved through proper operation and maintenance. If you are able to recognize the things that cause failures, you will be able to make a realistic evaluation of what you have a "right to expect" because you can determine the amount of failure prevention that has already been applied. You will also have a head start on achieving the level of performance you desire.
When a device...
