Event
Special Seminar: Michael Pecht, "Understanding and Predicting System Reliability"
Thursday, March 26, 2015
12:00 p.m.
1105 Kim Building (PEPCO Room)
Alison Flatau
aflatau@umd.edu
Understanding and Predicting System Reliability
Professor Michael Pecht
Director
Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) Center
Abstract
Reliability is the ability of a system to properly function, within specified performance limits, for a specified period of time, under the life cycle application conditions; and is one of the key attributes tracked during Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition. Yet the urgency to deploy new technologies and military capabilities often leads to defense systems being fielded with-out having first demonstrated adequate reliability. The same is true for other products and systems, ranging from consumer products, to computers, cars, airplanes and space vehicles.
Systems with poor reliability are not only less likely to successfully carry out their intended missions, but they may also endanger lives. Deficient systems are also much more likely to require extra scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and to demand more spare and replacement parts over their life cycles. In addition, not finding fundamental flaws in a system’s design until after it is deployed can lead to costly program delays, expensive redesigns, and the imposition of operational constraints.
Reliability Growth: Enhancing Defense System Reliability (2015), is a report from the National Research Council, written over a two year period by some of the leading reliability experts in the U.S. This report offers recommendations to improve defense system reliability throughout the sequence of reliability growth stages that comprise DoD acquisition processes—beginning with the articulation of requirements for new systems and ending with feedback mechanisms that document the reliability experience of deployed systems.
Prof. Pecht, a participant on the National Academy of Science team that helped write the report, will present some of the key problems with design for reliability and reliability growth that have plagued organizations. Some of the recommendations given by the NAS committee will be discussed, but the topic will be expanded to include other recommendations based on the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering’s (CALCE) success with commercial industries.
Biography
Prof Michael Pecht is a world renowned expert in strategic planning, design, test, and risk assessment of information systems. Prof Pecht has an MS in Electrical Engineering and an MS and PhD in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a Professional Engineer, an IEEE Fellow, an ASME Fellow, an SAE Fellow and an IMAPS Fellow. He is the editor-in-chief of IEEE Access, and served as chief editor of the IEEE Transactions on Reliability for nine years and chief editor for Microelectronics Reliability for sixteen years. He is the founder and Director of CALCE (Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering) at the University of Maryland, which is funded by over 150 of the world’s leading electronics companies at more than US$6M/year. The CALCE Center received the NSF Innovation Award in 2009, as well as the National Defense Industrial Association award (2009) for demonstrating outstanding achievement in the practical application of Systems Engineering principles, promotion of robust systems engineering principles throughout the organization, and effective systems engineering process development. Prof Pecht is currently a Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering and a Professor in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences at the University of Maryland. He has written more than twenty books on product reliability, development, use and supply chain management. He has also written a series of books of the electronics industry in China, Korea, Japan and India. He has written over 700 technical articles and has 7 patents. In 2013, he was awarded the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Engineering Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2011, he received the University of Maryland’s Innovation Award for his new concepts in risk management. In 2010, he received the IEEE Exceptional Technical Achievement Award for his innovations in the area of prognostics and systems health management. In 2008, he was awarded the highest reliability honor, the IEEE Reliability Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He has previously received the European Micro and Nano-Reliability Award for outstanding contributions to reliability research, 3M Research Award for electronics packaging, and the IMAPS William D. Ashman Memorial Achievement Award for his contributions in electronics analysis.
