Quality during Design

When we're trying to innovate, we can get trapped into the old thinking that the solution has to be out there somewhere. We need to think outside the box to find the solution to a problem. We should stop brainstorming and, instead, think inside the box with Systematic Inventive Thinking. We use systematic approaches to do lots of things, and being innovative can be one of them, too. This podc...

HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) uses the weakest link mentality. We apply stresses beyond what our designs would normally see in the environment to make something fail. It's meant to be an iterative test program where you are testing, analyzing the results, determining the root cause, fixing the design, and then testing it, again. This podcast reveals more about its roots, why you should...

It takes a village to produce a design from concept to realization. Everyone along the way seems to think of risk a little bit differently. Designers are both directly and indirectly involved with all these risk management methods, but it's important to understand who is looking at what type of information. Why? Because of communication. One group might think that risk management is covered i...

You're nearing the end of your project, getting cross-functional approval on your design, when your QE or RE friend comes running with a big, red STOP button!  Let's avoid that! Quality and Reliability are INPUTS into the design process, much earlier than by the time we have a prototype in-hand (even at the black-box, input-output phase). Getting the QEs and REs involved early will help...

You have identified a potential failure in your design. It's a complicated failure that has multiple potential root causes, and some that are conditional. Is there a tool that can capture it all and help prioritize your reactions to get rid of this problem? Yes, there is: Fault Tree Analysis! Learn what it is and how it can help you get a handle on that big failure. Send us a message Work wit...

Have you ever designed a product that works but that customers just don’t want to use? This podcast will review some tools and strategies to help prevent that from happening before product launch, or to help as a starting point when you plan for your version 2.0.  Send us a message Work with Dianna I help product development teams build quality into the front end when it's cheap and easy, not...

You have a design you want to make better. Or you're working within a designing framework that you think needs to be updated. Quality folks use and promote some standard problem solving and continuous improvement methods, and you’ll want to to get started with the right one, or reference the right acronym when getting buy-in for your project. You may have heard of PDCA, PDSA, and DMAIC. You v...