Reliability Society Newsletter

 

Vol. 61, No. 4, November 2015

Table of Contents

Front page:

President's Message

From the Editor


Society Events and Announcements:

2016 QRS Conference, Vienna, Austria - Call for Papers

2016 PHM Conference, Ottowa, Canada - Call for Papers

Announcing 2016 System of Systems Engineering (SoSE), Kongsburg, Norway

RS Tutorial in Beijing, China

2015 PHM Conference, Austin - Revisited

RS Outreach in Nanjing, China

RS Outreach in Wuhan, China


Members & Chapters:

Boston Chapter Summary

Dallas Chapter


Letters in Reliability:

More Reliable Decision Making - Sam Keene


Links:

Reliability Society Home

RS Newsletter Homepage

President's Message

Dear Reliability Society Member,

As the year 2015 is winding down it is timely to celebrate the successes of this year and plan ahead for a new year full of opportunities. Recently I was informed that the RS AdCom has elected me to serve as the 2016 President of the Reliability Society. This will be my third and final term as President and I feel privileged and honored for the confidence shown towards me. I am joined by a very fine group of volunteer leaders serving on the 2016 Executive Committee (ExCom):

  • Dennis Hoffman, Jr. Past President (non-elected position)
  • Jeffrey Voas, Sr. Past President (non-elected position)
  • Eric Wong, VP of Publications (re-elected)
  • Shiuhpyng Shieh, VP of Technical Activities (re-elected)
  • Carol Graas, VP of Meetings and Conferences (newly elected)
  • Joseph Childs, VP of Membership  (newly elected)
  • Robert Loomis, Treasurer (re-elected)
  • Pradeep Ramuhalli, Secretary  (newly elected)

We will have three outgoing officers:

  • Marsha Abramo, VP of Membership
  • Alfred Stevens, VP of Meetings and Conferences
  • Scott Abrams, Secretary

I am grateful for the service of our outgoing officers who have tirelessly and selflessly contributed endless hours of volunteer time to make the society successful and provide value to our members. In a society that is run exclusively by volunteers, we count on people being willing to spend many week-ends and evenings away from their day job and their families and/or sacrificing their valuable free time. I cannot thank each one of you enough for what they do every day for the RS.

I am also happy to introduce the newly elected and re-elected members of the RS Administrative Committee (AdCom) who will serve a three-year term 2016-2018 (in alphabetical order):

  • Scott Abrams (re-elected)
  • Evelyn Hirt (newly elected)
  • Charles Recchia (newly elected)
  • Jason Rupe (newly elected)
  • Alfred Stevens (re-elected)
  • Jeff Voas (re-elected)

This coming year will mark one of the largest turnovers both on the AdCom and ExCom that we have seen during my time in office. As much as we value our seasoned leaders who have been active in the society for many years, we also need “new blood” to continue revitalizing the society and I welcome the new officers with the hope of many new ideas for moving the society forward. The newly elected AdCom and ExCom members join a distinguished group of professionals representing the many different disciplines covered by the society’s Field of Interest (FOI) with people representing software, hardware, industry, government, academia, research, management, practicing reliability engineers and more.     

I invite all of our members to become (or remain) active with the society. There are many opportunities to contribute to the society in addition to serving as an elected AdCom or ExCom member. We are always in need of qualified people to assist with publication, conference, membership and technical activities. Please visit our website: rs.ieee.org for information on how to contact the elected officers and learn how you can contribute to the success of the society by volunteering in an area that is best fitted to your background and experience. 
I am wishing all of our members an enjoyable holiday season, and I hope to see many of you in 2016.

Christian K. Hansen, PhD
2015 and 2016 Reliability Society President


From the Editor

This is the last issue of this Letter for 2015. If you read on, you will see our Society bubbling with vibrant activity throughout the world! This includes conferences and chapter activities.

Your Administrative and Executive Committees have more plans in store for us next year. But if you're not one of these members, you can still help. Please give us feedback... You will notice lots of email addresses added for the contributors in this newsletter. If the Reliability Society is "missing the boat" in what we are doing, you would be helping a lot by letting us know. And it wouldn't be a BAD thing to inform us of the things we're doing right, as well! Maybe we can do more...

The Society leadership established some goals that were listed by Christian Hansen last month (abbreviated here)...

Goal # 1: Increase member awareness of RS benefits

Goal # 2: Expand dissemination of technical material

Goal # 3: Expand focus on reliability of emerging technologies

Goal # 4: Increase membership participation

Goal # 5: Extend collaboration with other Societies & Tech Communities

Goal # 6: Increase Annual Revenues

Are these the right goals? If they are, do you have an opinion on how we can better reach some of them? Your feedback is invaluable!

As I will be taking on new responsibilities in 2016, I will be stepping down as the Newsletter EiC. However, Lon Chase has agreed to take over this position for next year. He has performed in this role in the past, and I'm sure will seamlessly continue with timely, interesting Letters in the future. Lon, a big "Thank You" for taking on this responsibility.

I'm planning to submit a few contributions to this Letter from time to time. But meanwhile, please keep contributing to and reading this Newsletter. Thanks to you, our readers!

Joe Childs
2015 Newsletter Editor-in-Chief
joechilds@ieee.org


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