On April 7th, a one day seminar on “Understanding Reliability Engineering”was held in the UK. Over 70 people from various sectors of the UK attended the seminar. The key note speaker, Pantelis Vassiliou, flew in from the United States to make the presentation. Vassiliou is the Chief Executive Officer of the ReliaSoftCorporation and is known for being an expert on reliability engineering. He trains, consults, and lectures on reliability engineering topics to Fortune 1000 companies worldwide. At the seminar participants were provided with an overview of the positive business benefits that can be gained by incorporating reliability engineering methods and tools into organizations, as well as the consequences of not using them (including loss in financial terms, credibility and reputation). The importance of engineering is echoed by the department manager of Raytheon’s Reliability Analysis Lab, Bill Tice. Tice states that, “planning for product reliability is just as important as planning for a product’s design and manufacturer. The amount of product reliability must be in proportion to a product’s usage and warranty goals. Too much reliability and the product will be too expensive. Too little reliability and the warranty and repair costs will be high.”

The article shows how important it is for organizations to keep reliability engineering as common business practice. When companies are trying to stay afloat in the recession, they try to cut back on the things they feel are not as important, and unfortunately reliability engineering and predictive maintenance seem to be on the chopping block. It is articles like these posted by Raytheon and Wilde FEA Ltd that touch upon how important it is to have reliability engineering in an organization.