Chris Jackson founded Acuitas in 2010 after he ‘accidentally’ became a quality and reliability engineer.
He took a break from a very busy life as an Army officer and came back with a PhD in Reliability Engineering he never intended on getting (true story). But the problem he found when he started ‘doing’ quality and reliability was that there were massive disconnects between what was being taught, what was supposed to be taught, and what people were actually doing.
And that led to Acuitas.
It all starts with understanding how products, systems and manufacturing processes fail
Communication is everything.
One of the many problems with quality and reliability is that it includes a bunch of different ideas and schools of thought. This includes leadership, culture, probability and statistics, group facilitation, and specific activities. Some amazing reliability engineers are great at one, some, or all of these. But that doesn’t help an individual or a team leader know which direction they need for their role, for their organization, and for their product.
That is why communication is the first step. For example, you need to know probability and statistics, primarily to know when you shouldn’t use probability and statistics! While most courses teach probability and statistics through equations and ‘dot points,’ Chris created his own software specifically to generate videos that illustrate complex statistical concepts simply.
But … he also worked out how to teach and explain completely different things (like FMEAs, HALT, ALT, HASS, SPC, PCA, RCA … that’s a lot of acronyms …) just as simply and efficiently, focusing on the ‘vital few’ things that need to be learned and not the ‘trivial thousands’ you need to pass an exam.
But Acuitas is not one person. We have scriptwriters, video editors, illustrators and lots of others who continually search for the ‘simplest and most beautiful’ way to teach quality and reliability.
