10+ Dropped Items from the ASQ CRE Body of Knowledge

A Review of the 2018 ASQ CRE Body of Knowledge: Dropped Topics and Concepts

Just noticed the new 2018 ASQ CRE Body of Knowledge has posted on the ASQ site. The new BoK will be in effect for CRE exams as of January 2018. Thus, we have 6 months to adjust to the new body of knowledge.

This is part 1 of a multipart review of the new BoK. Here we’ll look at the parts that those preparing for the exam will not have to master or review. There are 8 topics dropped completely or in part from the BoK.

In future articles we’ll review what has been added, what has changed, and how to best prepare for exams based on the new BoK. Plus, we can use a look over past BoK’s to get a sense of where reliability engineering practice is today.

In part the logic is these sets of tools (topics) that are not in regular widespread use by working reliability engineers. In some cases I agree and others I don’t. Let’s take a look at the 8 topics not found in the upcoming CRE BoK.

I. A. 6. Warranty management

It appears the general topic of warranty management is gone, which is fine. There is a growing industry around warranty management including policies, reverse logistics, extended and 3rd party warranties. A portion of the topic remains as warranty data often contains a wealth of information about past product performance, failure criteria, and use…