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Is it right for you? Reliability Engineer Certification - CRE

Step 1. Is this the right certification for you?

Here are the requirements and exam specifics for a Reliability Engineer. If you already know that this is the certification you want to pursue, move on to exam preparation.

Education and/or Experience

Work experience must be in a full time, paid role. Paid intern, co-op or any other course work cannot be applied towards the work experience requirement.

You must have eight years of on-the-job experience in one or more of the areas of the Certified Reliability Engineer Body of Knowledge. A minimum of three years of this experience must be in a decision-making position. “Decision-making” is defined as the authority to define, execute, or control projects/processes and to be responsible for the outcome. This may or may not include management or supervisory positions.

If you are now or were previously certified by ASQ as a Quality Engineer, Quality Auditor, Software Quality Engineer, or Quality Manager, experience used to qualify for certification in these fields often applies to certification as a Reliability Engineer.

If you have completed a degree* from a college, university, or technical school with accreditation accepted by ASQ, part of the eight-year experience requirement will be waived, as follows (only one of these waivers may be claimed):

  • Diploma from a technical or trade school—one year will be waived
  • Associate degree—two years waived
  • Bachelor’s degree—four years waived
  • Master’s or doctorate—five years waived

*Degrees or diplomas from educational institutions outside the United States must be equivalent to degrees from U.S. educational institutions.

Minimum Expectations for a Certified Reliability Engineer

  • Will understand strategic management aspects of reliability engineering, its relationship to safety and quality, its impact on warranty programs and customer satisfaction, the consequences of failure, and the potential for liability. Will understand requirements planning for reliability programs and how various engineering and operational systems must be integrated to achieve overall program goals and alignment with organizational goals. Will use risk analysis tools and techniques to evaluate product and system safety issues. Will abide by the ASQ Code of Ethics.
  • Will use probability and statistical tools to analyze product lifecycle, conduct hypothesis testing, understand appropriate statistical models, tolerance and confidence intervals, sample size determination, and regression analysis.
  • Will develop product and process reliability requirements using reliability and design techniques such as FMEA, fault tolerance, optimization, and DOE. Will develop systems for material selection, derating methods, and manufacturing control.
  • Will develop models to analyze and predict reliability performance using block diagrams, physics of failure, apportionment, dynamic reliability, and simulations.
  • Will develop reliability test plans that represent the expected use environment and operational conditions. Will select, analyze, and interpret the results of various test methods to be used during product development and end product testing.
  • Will apply the principles of maintainability and availability over the lifecycle of the product, process, or system and will identify and support appropriate testability methods and maintenance activities.
  • Will identify, collect, analyze, and manage various types of data to minimize failures and improve performance, and will use failure analysis, FRACAS, and other types of root cause analysis in support of reliability.

Examination

Each certification candidate is required to pass a written examination that consists of multiple choice questions that measure comprehension
of the Body of Knowledge. The Reliability Engineer examination is a one-part, 150-question, four-hour exam and is offered in English.

Examinations are conducted twice a year, in March and October, by local ASQ sections and international organizations.
All examinations are open-book. Each participant must bring his or her own reference materials. Use of reference materials and calculators is
explained in the seating letter provided to applicants.

Please Note: The Body of Knowledge for certification is affected by new technologies, policies, and the changing dynamics of manufacturing
and service industries. Changed versions of the examination based on the current Body of Knowledge are used at each offering.

Are you ready to get started? Prepare for the exam. >>>