2012®

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Five Ways to Reduce Warranty

Costs

Fred Schenkelberg

Consultant FMS Reliability

®Introduction• First a few questions

• How do you talk about Reliability?

• What is the cost of unreliability?• What is included?• Warranty?

• Who is in charge of reducing warranty costs?• C-suite• Engineering• Operations

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What really happens when products fail?

WHAT IS THE CURRENT SITUATION?

A few observations

How Motivated?

Data ≠

Information

Direction

DO YOU WANT TO REDUCE WARRANTY COSTS?

Just checking…

ApproachHow to approach creating a

reliable product

®Reliability Goal

• Function

• Duration

• Probability

• Environment

®Reliability Goal

• Function

• Duration

• Probability

• Environment

• How fails?

• How long?

• Survival Chance

• Use and weather

®ApportionmentSystem

• 95% reliable over 2 years…

Elements• With 5 major elements

• Each has to be at least

• 99% reliable over 2 years…

®ApportionmentSystem

• 95% reliable over 2 years…

Elements• With 5 major elements

• Each has to be at least

• 99% reliable over 2 years…

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Focus on Failure Mechanisms

• Real or imagined

• Discovered or measured

• Modeled or measured

• Eliminate or mitigate

®Reliability Measured

• Function

• Duration

• Probability

• Environment

Supply ChainHow to improve supplier or

component reliability

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The five standard responses

• “Never seen that before….”

• “You must be overstressing it…”

• “ESD…”• “We know and

have a fix in place…”

• What have you heard?

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Set reliability requirements

• Apportioned goal

• Expected Environment

• Read the datasheet• Interpret• Ask more questions

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What are you going to do with this?

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What are you going to do with this? Peck’s Eqn

Norris-Landzberg

Arrhenius

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What are the failure mechanisms

• What is expected to fail? Why?

• Given our environment…

• Given our design…

• Given variation…

®Trust and Verify

• Identify what is important

• And, measure it

• Let vendor know you are measuring it.

Environment/UseTechniques to improve

understanding of customer’s use conditions

®Weather

• Varies

• Not always at extremes

• Also includes:• Power line• ESD/Lightening• Noise• Etc.

®Phases

• Shipping

• Installation

• Use• Takeoff• Level flight• landing

MeasureThe environment and use

®Measurement Methods

• Studies

• Surveys

• Monitoring• Data loggers• On-board sensors• Indicators

MaturityTechniques to measure reliability proactively

not reactively

®Subtle differencesReactive• >25% fixing problems

• Individual “Hero”

• Lot’s of testing

• Surprises

Proactive• < 5%

• Product performs

• Very selective testing

• Confirmation

FailuresGuidelines to improve

failure analysis

®Friday afternoon

• Panic

• What if…

• Focus blame…

®Gather data and facts

• Details

• Environment

• Exposure

• Extent

Remain Calm

®Guidelines

• Use an FA lab, not vendor

• Seek understanding

• Fix processes

®Golden Nuggets

• Identify classic errors

• Create and review short list• Start of program• Near program end

• (read Petroski Design Paradigms)

®Summary

• Approach

• Supply Chain

• Environment/Use

• Maturity

• Failure

What areyourQuestions?