Ops A La Carte Newsletter Summary: Fall/Winter 2007

The very hectic, but very productive, summer we enjoyed at Ops A La Carte has led - maybe predictably! - into a hectic and productive autumn. The Ops A La Carte team has been conducting seminars and meeting with clients around the world. It's a whirlwind, but we love it.

The month of September found Ops A La Carte delivering presentations at the ASQ Statistics Society and then presenting a webinar for QualMark. We were discussing, in both cases, Early Reliability Testing, which is a subject that only grows in significance for countless companies.

In October we were in Singapore, where we offered a half day seminar on Reliability. This was done at the Singapore Manufacturers' Federation conference. Those who would like an abstract of this presentation, or any of Ops A La Carte's other recent presentations, should email us at events@opsalacarte.com; we will be happy to send a copy of the abstract.

Ops A La Carte sponsored another event in Singapore at the end of October, on the 25th and 26th. This symposium, which revolved around the theme of "Sharing applications, success stories, and lessons learned in reliability and maintainability engineering," was hosted by the International Applied Reliability Symposium. Presenting organizations included many heavy hitters in the reliability and manufacturing arenas, including ReliaSoft Corporation, General Electric, and ABB NA Reliability Services. Plans are already underway for the 2008 symposium, and Ops A La Carte will keep its associates and clients abreast of developments and plans for the next event.

We were on the management committee for an Accelerated Stress Test Workshop that was held on October 31st and November 1st and 2nd in Washington DC. Ops A La Carte was involved in three presentations, as well. Mike Silverman delivered two papers. One was "Early Reliability Testing: Increasing the Effectiveness of a Reliability Program by Moving Reliability Testing Upstream" and the second was "HASS Profile Fine Tuning Using Field Data." Our Arthur Zingher presented a well-received paper, "Enhancing Accelerated Life Tests with Prognostics." Ops A La Carte was proud to be so involved with this workshop.

With the holiday season upon us, of course, things get a little quieter, and we have the luxury of being able to focus on our work, take a breath, spend time with our families, and then gear up for our first conference of 2008. This will be held in Las Vegas on January 28-31, 2008, the Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, known to many in our field as RAMS. Ops A La Carte is on the management committee for this event and will also be presenting tutorials and papers. Mike Silverman, George de la Fuente, Fred Schenkelberg, Doug Farel, and Bob Mueller will all be traveling to Las Vegas to be personally involved with RAMS. Papers presented will include: "How to Develop a Qualification Test Plan for RoHS Products," "Competitive Analysis," and "Design for Warranty Cost Reduction." Our tutorial session, which will be led by the team of Mike Silverman (founder of Ops A La Carte) and George de la Fuente, is entitled "Software Design for Reliability."

Ops A La Carte is offering a deal to the first person who refers us to a new consultant. In light of the recent, tremendous expansion of Ops A La Carte - an expansion, we're happy to report, is ongoing - we are on the lookout for the best technical operations consultants. The person who gives us the first referral in this area will be granted free admission to RAMS in January 2008! The registration fee is $950.00; this could be a real opportunity for some lucky person!

RAMS will be held January 28-31, 2008, at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. To inquire about registration or the program, please contact Ops A La Carte (events@opsalacarte.com) or the RAMS registration contact, Dr. Raymond Sears, Jr. (r.w.sears@ieee.org).