The speaker will discuss the major reliability methods and implementation activities when developing modern complex engineering systems, which usually are comprised of mechanical, electrical, and software and control functionalities. Design for reliability tools such as reliability allocation, system functional and boundary diagrams, event sequence diagrams, and reliability growth modeling, planning, and prediction will be discussed. Reliability data analysis, especially under the Weibull model will be introduced through numerical examples.

Professor Steven Li is with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Western New England University in Springfield, MA, USA. Dr. Li’s research interests focus on Reliability, Quality, and Safety Engineering in Product Design, Systems Engineering and Its Applications in New Product Development, Diagnostics and Prognostics of Complex Engineered Systems, and Engineering Management. He earned his doctorate in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington. Dr. Li has over 50 publications in journals and conference proceedings including IIE transactions, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Quality Engineering, RAMS, ISERC, etc. He currently serves as Associate Editors for IEEE Transactions on Reliability and the International Journal of Performability Engineering. He has been actively serving on conference program committees and invited to give keynote speeches at international conferences. Prior to his career in academia, Dr. Li has about 10 years’ industry experiences at both management and technical positions. His most recent industry position was a reliability team lead with Caterpillar Rail Division to support the company’s Tier 4 Locomotive New Four Stroke Engine and Gas-Diesel Dual Fuel Engine Development. He is an ASQ certified Reliability Engineer, and Caterpillar Six Sigma Black Belt.