Twin Cities RS Chapter News August 1, 2013

James McLinn – Chapter Chair

The Twin Cities chapter of the IEEE Reliability Society has been active in 2013. During the beginning of the year the chapter held two lab visits, one joint meeting and a planning session for the fall. Lots of sessions are planned for the rest of the year.

March 19 was a visit by 22 people to North Star Labs in Rogers, Minnesota. This lab specializes in metrology and making specialized precision measurements.

April 16 was a visit by 29 people to Material Evaluation Engineering in Plymouth, Minnesota. This lab specializes in SEM, materials evaluation and contamination analysis. Great visit for the group.

May 21 was a talk on a "Journey to implement a Lean Design Process" by Dan Cooke of Boston Scientific. Great story on the goals, approaches and pitfalls of this process. Thirty one people attended.

June 12 was a joint meeting with the local SRE chapter to hear Julio Pulido speak on "What's wrong with DFR". The Q&A session afterward lasted an hour since the 32 attendees didn't want to end.

The July planning session brought a tentative list of topics for the fall of 2013. These are:

September 17 – Mark Wagner of Watlow will cover "Estimating Future Product Returns"

October 15 – Mohammad Hasan of Nilfisk on "Creating a Comprehensive Reliability Program Plan for a Controller Assembly".

November 19 will be Mike Sherman of Graco talking on "Risk Assessment"

In December a joint meeting with the local SRE chapter is planned.