<p>D’s co-op this fall will be in “Reliability”. I assumed that was some sort of quality control so I looked it up. I found Reliabilty Engineering and it seems to be a rather broad field dealing with nearly all facets of engineering ie mechanical, electrical, chemical etc. that studies fail rates, statistics, processes etc. It sounds related to quality control and safety engineering, however the emphasis is on costs rather than just protecting employees or the quality of the product. Since I had not heard of it before I was wondering if anyone in engineering currently is familiar with working in “Reliability”? Thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, I am familiar with it - My first professional job was in reliability engineering (although I transferred within the company just 4 months later). What did you want to know?</p>
<p>What is it exactly and what would someone working in Reliability be doing? Did you find it interesting work? Will having experience in it be useful in other engineering positions? I guess I have questions because until she was given her assignment and we had never heard of it before. If they had said quality control or safety I probably wouldn’t have bothered asking anything even though I would be just as clueless as to what her responsibilities would be. Thanks again.</p>
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Reliability engineering is influencing the design of products to make them more reliable. For example, an engine designed under lab conditions is probably only taking in very clean air, but a reliability engineer would make sure that the intake had filters designed for the real world (as a simple example). As a senior engineer in reliability, you would be involved in the design process and actually work with the design engineers to make sure that what they were making worked under more than just ideal lab conditions. As a junior reliability engineer, you would most likely be tracking the frequency and causes of failures in a set of products, monitoring them for trends that suggest a design flaw, and reporting the results back to someone else.</p>
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Yes and no. It was not my personal cup of tea, but it did provide me with an excellent introduction to our product line, and got me involved early on with some very high-level managers and engineers. It seems to be a love/hate kind of job, the person who succeeded me couldn’t believe I didn’t want to stay.</p>
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That depends entirely on the “other engineering positions” - there is a lot of crossover with systems engineering, but relatively little with design engineering (other than the awareness of the need for reliability!).</p>
<p>Remember that this is just a co-op, not a permanent assignment - it is not a bad experience to have, and if she likes it then she will understand what to look for in the future.</p>
<p>Thank you. You were very helpful. It will be interesting to see what they have someone who is doing their first co-op doing. I could see her assisting in some of the tasks you mention for the junior engineer. Thanks again.</p>
<p>Congrats on the co-op. Truly, any real life work experience is helpful whether directly related to final goals or not.</p>
<p>My first 20 years was in printer Reliability/Availability/Service Engineering assignments. I liked it. My work practical and hands-on … service manual procedures, suggestions for part improvements, error code design. Sometimes it included Human Factors kind of work too. I assume that Reliability Engineering would involve more intensive math and statistical analysis than my jobs did. </p>
<p>Thank you. I think she is really looking forward to it. I know she is ready for a break from school. This is a 5 session co-op so she started classes her freshman year this fall and has been been going to school nearly continuously since then (no summer break). Everyone she has talked to has really enjoyed the change of pace the co-op session offers.</p>
<p>Co-op can be a great way to go. At the end of the session, she’ll be missing friends and classes… ready to dig in again for a fresh start. </p>
<p>I worked with some reliability engineers on the space station project. They would review the designs and calculate the reliability of the Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs) and what their failure rates would be. They used some historical data that I thought was a little outdated, so we would have our discussions about the designs. They used the failure rate data to predict the re-supply mass requirements (i.e. how much launch capability was required) and number of spares to build and have on hand. They had some impact on changing the design if it was just a small part that was unreliable on a large and expensive component, for example. Not my cup of tea, but the ones that did it enjoyed their work.</p>
<p>A comment about co-ops and internships; Students experiences with these will vary a lot. Some companies (or really the manager whom you are working for) will put some effort into giving the student some meaningful work. It has to be out of the critical path (you’d be crazy to bet a make or break project on an inexperienced intern) and short enough to fit within the intern/co-op timeframe. So, it does require some forethought on the manager’s part. Other companies will just give the student some make work job because it is less work for the manager to set up. Be aware of what kind of experience you are getting. In either case, be sure to talk to other full time employees and get them to explain what they are doing to get a real feel for what the work is like.</p>
<p>@HPuck35 I forwarded your comments on co-ops to my D. I hope she has a good experience. A friend of hers from HS had that very thing happen to her with an internship. She completed the planned project then they had nothing else planned for her. It was very frustrating for her.</p>
<p>They key with co-ops is to be helpful and patient. It’s not easy for a company to magically have a project(s) that is exactly right, filling the exact the time-frame of student availability and expertise. Luckily the salary still flows even in the less busy times 
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<p>Not really wishing to steal this thread but a manager can get good projects set up for interns. I did when I was a manager. I had a large group of engineers working for me (over 20) and there were all different levels and durations of projects that we had. If I ran across a project that fit the criteria for an intern starting around mid-spring (after all, one criteria was that it couldn’t be schedule critical), I would just shelve it if I could until summer and the intern was there.</p>
<p>I would also assign one of the younger engineers as mentor to the intern. A lot of the interns were more comfortable talking to someone that they considered nearly a peer than me, the crusty old manager. Of course, I did spend sometime talking with the intern as I also wanted to get to know them as I ended up hiring quite a few of them as full time employees.</p>
<p>I always felt that if I didn’t have time to give a proper assignment to an intern, then I should pass on having an intern. Most summers I had at least one intern and a couple of times (when the group was up around 30) I had two summer interns. Budget wise, it was the staff taking their summer vacations that gave me the budget to afford the interns.</p>