Reliability improvement project decision making : water cooling system redesign

Abstract

Deciding on which reliability & performance improvement projects to launch or to reject has historically been an extremely challenging responsibility of Teradyne management. Incorrect decisions can lead to major customer dissatisfaction, which may subsequently lead to loss of market share. Teradyne Engineering and Marketing team have been trying to develop a tool that would assist in their reliability improvement project decision making. The challenge is the dynamic aspects of the reliability improvement projects. Like most engineering projects, reliability improvement projects have variables such as internal workforce, productivity, skill sets, customer expectations and many others that are in constant motion. These variables make the assessment of reliability projects extremely difficult in a static framework. This research will incorporate these key variables into a dynamic framework to help assess individual reliability improvement projects.