Lee Reidinger, director of the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, discussing big data climate studies research with ESE PhD students at ORNL.

Reliability and Maintainability Engineering, MS

Reliability and maintainability are crucial aspects of engineering because they directly impact the performance, safety, cost-effectiveness, and lifespan of products and systems, making them an essential foundation in any traditional engineering field. Obtaining an MS degree in this area sets students and professionals apart with specialized skills and research opportunities highly valued across many industries.

Program Overview

The Reliability and Maintainability Engineering (RME) program is a multidisciplinary program that focuses on the use of management systems, analysis techniques, and advanced condition-based and preventive technologies to identify, manage, and eliminate failures leading to losses in system function. Once perceived as a practitioner or manufacturing issue, reliability, and maintainability engineering is now considered a business issue of urgent priority.

The Master of Science degree consists of thirty hours of graduate work in RME and may have a concentration in one of the traditional engineering academic departments. Thesis and non-thesis research options are available for students, and the program can be completed on campus or through real-time and interactive distance delivery.

Student can also choose to pursue a dual MS-MBA program with a major in reliability and maintainability engineering.

With industry standards and compliance constantly evolving at a fast pace, it’s important for engineers to continue learning RME best practices to gain a professional edge and support movement into leadership and strategic roles. Obtaining an MS in RME prepares professionals and scholars to address industry demand for reliability experts by becoming equipped as leaders in field.

What can you do with a MS in Reliability and Maintainability Engineering after graduation?

Those who complete the MS in Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Program are better equipped for roles in reliability engineering, maintenance management, quality control, and asset management across diverse industries. Completing this program prepares individuals with a unique set of skills that opens the door to pursuing careers as reliability engineers or data analysts, maintenance engineers, quality assurance specialists, predictive maintenance technicians, RME consultants, and many more.

Featured Courses

Below are some of the courses that students in our program can choose to take. For a list of courses, visit the Graduate Catalog.

IE 483 Introduction to Reliability Engineering

Probabilistic failure models and parameter estimation (maximum likelihood, Bayes techniques). Model identification and comparison, accelerated life tests, failure prediction, system reliability, preventive maintenance, and warranties.

IE 484 Introduction to Maintainability Engineering

Principles of maintenance and reliability engineering and maintenance management. Topics include information extraction from machinery measurements, rotating machinery diagnostics, nondestructive testing, life prediction, failure models, lubrication oil analysis, establishing a predictive maintenance program, and computerized maintenance management systems.

IE 516 Statistical Methods in Industrial Engineering

Application of classical statistical techniques to industrial engineering problems. Statistics and statistical thinking in managerial context of organizational improvement; descriptive statistics and distribution theory; relationship between statistical process control techniques and classical statistical tools; parameter estimation and hypothesis testing; goodness-of-fit testing; linear regression and correlation; analysis of variance; single and multiple factor experimental design.

IE 517 Reliability of Lean Systems

Course is divided into two major components. First half of the course will focus on introducing the students to the concepts of reliability and maintainability and the impact of lean on the reliability of complex systems. The concepts of reliability engineering are utilized to address lean system failures, including equipment failures, human failures, material failures and scheduling failures. Will develop the ability to design systems that are both lean and reliable. The second half of the course will introduce students to specific case studies of systems failures and ask student to develop solutions by considering different dimensions including financial, technical feasibility, risk, safety, security, and others. Multi criteria decision making methodologies will be presented to allow students to make decisions when different criteria lead to conflicting solutions.

Related Programs

Want to explore your options? Look at these other programs that are related to the reliability and maintainability engineering:

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