As a consultant to product development teams I provide in-depth leadership and participation in common systems engineering activities required by typical design control schemes.  I combine applied statistical methods with systems engineering tools throughout each stage of the product development process in order to clarify requirements, identify risks, reduce variation, and quantify the reliability of the product.

Leading and Facilitating Group Engineering Sessions:  Engineers burdened with design schedules recognize the value of requirements definition and risk analysis, but may lack the time to organize and lead a session to conduct the work.  I prepare, facilitate, analyze, and summarize group engineering activities such as requirements identification, hazards analysis, failure modes and effects analysis, and reliability allocation.

Designing Experiments and Protocols:  Proper factoring, randomization, estimation of variation, and sample planning are simple statistical tools that elevate common design testing (which often loses its value after a design changes) into well-documented, repeatable, and comparable tests that are valuable throughout development.  Formal protocols demand statistical rigor including method selection, sample planning, and calculation of confidence/tolerance intervals.  I work directly with engineers responsible for testing to craft economical statistical designs, perform the statistical analysis after the data is collected, and author the statistical reporting when formality is required.

Quantifying Product Reliability:  Customers expect products to be reliable and engineering teams will always strive to source highly reliable components in their designs.  So it is important to plan, allocate, model, and predict product reliability as designs advance through the product development process.  I lead planning and allocation exercises that result in reliability requirements.  I create reliability models and predictions for each feature of the product that are refined as the product develops.

Auditing Manufacturing Processes and Product Performance:  The best of designs can fail if critical tolerances and production steps are not well controlled in manufacturing.  I help select acceptance sampling plans for inspections, design process controls for measurable manufacturing steps, and create product performance audit plans consistent with design considerations.  These steps ensure control in manufacturing is maintained and product performance is undiminished over time.

This combination of applied statistical methods with common systems engineering tools is a powerful means to improving products and project efficiencies.  The goal is to make better design decisions up front when the design is still fluid.  Engineering teams will have greater confidence in their designs.  And the use of statistical methods will enable better comparison of design changes when they occur.