Track 1 Session 4

2:10 to 3:10 p.m. Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Integrated Field Reliability Tracking System for an In-Service Product

As the markets become more global in nature and competition intensifies, product reliability becomes increasingly important in the marketplace. The economic importance of product reliability cannot be underestimated. A high level of reliability contributes to brand recognition. In the absence of significant price advantages, reliability issues will be the basis of consumer decisions in a given market. In the emerging wind energy industry, reliability engineering practices are seen as an agent of change with respect to the technology and business perspective. Customers expect innovative, reliable, safe and cost-effective products with extended warranty contracts, maintenance service agreements, clauses for liabilities and penalties for product malfunction/failure. In order to fulfill customer requirements, the industry must be innovative and cost-effective in terms of both product design, development and manufacturing as well as having a robust field performance tracking system to proactively address reliability issues and reduce warranty claims. In this presentation, we will highlight the importance of field reliability tracking. We will demonstrate an approach to create a field reliability tracking system adopted by a wind energy organization. This approach integrates the various elements of the system for an in-service product. Each of these elements will be described such that the relationship between them can easily be derived. This methodology is general in nature, hence can be practiced in any organization according to their requirements.

Key Words: In-service Data, Field Reliability Tracking, Reliability Metrics, Weibull Analysis, Failure Forecasting, Warranty/Extended Warranty

Nitesh Lall, Tushir Sheleshwar, Sinda Rebello and Himanshu Singh

LM Wind Power