1. Co-Op Experience Presentation
Tyler Ross Lambert
Auburn University
December 17, 2014

2. Introduction
• Name: Tyler Ross Lambert
• School: Auburn University
• Expected Graduation Date: August 2015
• Major: Mechanical Engineering
• Work Term: Second

3. First Term Overview
• First Term Projects:
– PPM-SNCR Reporting Programs
• Programs for PPM and SNCR reporting for WHD, ACD, and Raypak developed in Excel using VBA
• Monthly reporting time cut down from hours/days to minutes
• Quarterly and Annual graphs also generated for analysis
– Warranty Analysis Program
• Program developed to take in claims data from BI and call data from Daniel John’s queries to
generate a breakdown of warranty costs by the supplier, part number, part name, and QA Reason
Code/Comments
– Tankless Control Board Sorting
• Returned Tankless PCB were sorted by capacitor type and logged whether of not the board was
good or bad based on that capacitor type.
– Other Projects
• Home Depot Large Order User Form
• Updated Supplier Audit Form with Encoded Features
• Corrective Action Average Days/Phase Compiler
• Autohotkey program that extracts all Call Notes for all Call Numbers into Excel and flags Call
Numbers based on the contents of its Call Notes using a series of Macros. (used in the analysis of
money spent sending duplicate replacement parts due to an incorrect address, shipping damage,
etc.)

4. Second Term Overview
• Second Term Projects Summary:
– Failure Analysis Lab
• Worked roughly once a week helping to perform tank teardowns and generating Failure Analysis
Reports to learn more about the failure modes that the different types of water heaters
experience on a regular basis.
• Worked on the development of a Troubleshooting Manual for Tankless water heaters.
• Designed an expansion to the existing testing station to quadruple the existing testing area
– Early Warning System
• Worked with Carl Lynn, Tace Horii, and Pat Stephenson to develop an Early Warning System for
Rheem products.
• Utilizes percentages obtained by using sales normalized to the previous three months’ worth of
calls, and flags product groups whose percentages have moved outside of a set control limit.
– Reliance Development
• Developed tasks to run updated Escalation notices
• Developed a quasi-connection with BI by uploading part costs into Reliance so that Deviations
and NCMRs can reduce typos and compute costs with higher accuracy.
• Improved the Reliance PPM scorecards for all divisions with added features and functionality
• Added a tracker for PPAPs to help determine the timeliness of completion

5. Tank Teardowns
Step 1: The appropriate fittings are
securely fastened to the hot and cold
lines and hook up hoses for hydro-
testing (this example will use a
Marathon unit).

6. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 2: The resistance of the elements is tested
using a multimeter to check for a dry fired
element (should be approximately 12 Ω).

7. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 2: Leak points are searched for (usually an issue
around one of the stub tubes, the gaskets for the
elements, or an issue with the drain line). Once
leaking is observed, the jacket is removed around the
leak point to allow for further inspection.

8. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 3: After removing the jacket, the insulation
surrounding the tank is removed in order to get a
better view of the leak point. As you can see below,
in this unit the leak was coming from the hot water
stub tube where the stub tube connects to the hot
line with a copper crimp.

9. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 4: Because the stub tube has been identified as
the primary leak point, the fittings are taken off and
the stub tube is removed. The stub tube is then
visually expected for any abnormalities. A Dremel
rotary tool is then used to cut the stub tube into two
pieces, being careful to preserve any abnormalities
for documentation.

10. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 5: The linear abnormality below is found after
cutting open the stub tube and documented as the
cause of the leak. These types of abnormalities are
usually the result of pressurized water running along
a seam in the stub tube and cutting away the plastic
over time.

11. Tank Teardowns (cont’d)
Step 6: A Failure Analysis report is filled out detailing the serial number, model
number, handling code, diagnosis code, complaint code, call number, the call notes,
a summary of the failure analysis, and photographic documentation of that
analysis. Afterwards, spreadsheets keeping track of failure analysis are updated to
reflect the results of the testing.

12. Tank Teardowns Summary
• Verified Failure Modes of Marathon Units:
– Stub Tube Linear Abnormality
• Shown in previous slides, water runs along a seam in the stub tube causing leaks at the connection
• Occurs on the hot water side, cold water side, T&P valve line, and drain line stub tubes.
– Drain Line Stub Tube Star Crimp
• Units with a date code of 1914 were isolated because of the use of a star crimp that was associated with leaks.
• Over 90% of units with a star crimp insufficiently connected the stub tube with the drain line and leaked.
– Exposed Element Gasket
• Units with a part of the element gasket exposed often leaked from the exposed part of the gasket in a constant stream of water.
– Damaged Tank
• Leaks through the sideports or the drain line can sometimes be caused by a crack in the tank itself
• Often found near one of the stub tubes.
– Dry-Fired Element
• Developed tasks to run updated Escalation notices
• Developed a quasi-connection with BI by uploading part costs into Reliance so that Deviations and NCMRs can reduce typos and
compute costs with higher accuracy.
– Vacuum Crack
• Cracks in the tank caused by a malfunction in the Vacuum Relief Valve where the tank is drained without air coming into the tank.
• Negative pressure situation causes the tank to collapse in on itself until failure.

13. Failure Modes
Drain Line Leak (Star Crimp)

14. Failure Modes
Exposed Element Gasket

15. Failure Modes
Damaged Tank

16. Failure Modes
Dry Fired Element

17. Failure Analysis Projects
• Tankless Troubleshooting Manual:
• Worked with Tace Horii to create
an updated troubleshooting
manual for tankless units.
• The troubleshooting guide was
created for Error Codes 11, 12, and
13. These are all error codes that
involve flame rods not detecting
flame.
• This update allows for different
troubleshooting methods
depending on the age of the unit.

18. Failure Analysis Projects (cont’d)
• Testing Station Expansion
• The number of units being tested in one day
is bottlenecked by the limited space provided
by the testing station, even with added labor.
• The additional test station was designed to
support 1,000 lbs., not including a factor of
safety (of roughly 2.5 for this design)
• Expansion Parameters:
• Weight: 830 lbs.
• Material: Galvanized Steel
• Incline: 0.5 degrees in two directions
• Surface Area: 44 sq. ft.
SolidWorks FEA Simulation

19. Failure Analysis Projects (cont’d)
SolidWorks Rendered Image of Test Stand

20. Failure Analysis Projects (cont’d)

21. Early Warning System
• The Early Warning System was proposed by Carl Lynn and works by obtaining the
previous six months’ “call rates”, which are defined by the following equation:
where CR is the “call rate” in the month given by the subscript
S is the number of sales in the month given by the subscript
C is the number of calls in the month given by the subscript
• This equation states that the call rate is defined as the quantity of sales for a given
month divided by the sum of the number of calls from the previous three months
before the month being looked at.
𝐶𝑅 𝑖 =
𝑛=𝑖 − 4
𝑛=𝑖 − 1
𝐶 𝑛
𝑆𝑖

22. Early Warning System (cont’d)
• Rheem products were split up based on their marketing mode numbers into a variety of different product groups,
or “buckets”.
• A series of dashboards were set up in Oracle Business Intelligence that drew from Rheem Sales Analytics in order
to provide a simple method to obtain the quantity of sold product for each of these product groups based on the
month sold, as shown below:

23. Early Warning System (cont’d)
• The number of calls for the product groups is determined by using a workbook that runs queries connecting in to
the one800 database and contains a pivot table keeping track of the call numbers on a monthly basis.
• After obtaining this information, it is compiled in worksheets contained on the F: Drive which have been
programmed to generate reports that can be fed directly into Minitab.
• Using Minitab to run I-MR reports based on the data for each product group, we obtain a chart that looks similar
to the one shown below (the red dot means that the call rate falls above a computed upper control limit,
entailing that there is an issue that warrants investigation):

24. Reliance Development
• Escalation Notices
– Previous System: An e-mail would be sent out for each document that was within five days of being
past due, was due that day, or was past due (with five days past due also notifying the manager of
the user)
– New System: A single e-mail is sent out with a generated table that provides a unique list of
documents that need attention. Four separate lists can be sent out if they have documents that will
populate them:
• Documents Due within 3 days
• Documents due today
• Documents past due
• Documents five days or more past due (will notify the assigned user AND their listed “Reports To”)
– Early results have been encouraging, as response time has decreased dramatically in the month that
this system has been implemented.
– The scripts used to generate these e-mails use a combination of Python, Javascript, MySQL, and
HTML.

25. Reliance Development (cont’d)
An example of an e-mail sent out using the new Escalation system is shown
below:
A series of Reliance escalation notices have been created for tracking purposes, and a
program has been developed in VBA that allows for the Reliance administrator to chart
out who has the most documents in the system that are approaching or past their due
dates.

26. Reliance Development (cont’d)
• PPAP Timeliness Reporting
– Using a metric given by Michael Carver for “expected number of days for each phase”, encoded a
metric for the expected number of days for a PPAP to have completed the current phase it sits in.
– Using these “expected days”, an ideal completion date for the current phase is found and the
documents are color coded using:
• Green: Document has not passed the ideal phase completion date
• Yellow: Document falls within a five day grace period after the ideal phase completion date
• Red: Document has passed the ideal phase completion date and the allotted five day grace period.
• White: Document is not color coded (Rheem Internal PPAPs)
– These color codes were applied to a column and through some manipulation of the SQL and the JSP file
for a view in Reliance, the color codes could be applied to each row of the view, as shown below:

27. Reliance Development (cont’d)
• PPAP Phase Reporting
– Helped code functionality in the PPAP form that keeps track of how many times a document has been
sent to each phase.
– This functionality enables people to see if a PPAP meets a First Time Approval metric.
– An example of how this data is displayed in PPAP documents is provided on the next slide.

28. Reliance Development (cont’d)

29. Reliance Development (cont’d)
• Reliance Link with BI Answers
– A method was developed which allows for the exporting of part costs from Oracle and an importing of those costs into
Reliance so that an updated database of part costs could be available.
– Fields that allow for the selection of these parts and run queries to find their respective costs depending on which plant
is selected have also been established.
– Will eliminate errors in entering part numbers for documents in Reliance and will allow for more accurate reporting of
costs for Deviations and Non-conformances.
• Automatic Document Refreshing
– Task has been coded that will automatically refresh all open PPAPs every morning (to keep the color codes up to date)
– Another task has been created that will automatically move all scorecards that are in “Draft” to “Complete” as long as
there are no open NCMR documents for that supplier in that month. This task also refreshes the scorecards in the event
that any open NCMRs have been updated with Disposition Quantities since the last update.
• Supplier Approval Status Validation
– Problem: Not all suppliers in the Reliance system have supplier profiles set up for them, and the Approval Status of our
suppliers has not been kept up
– An example script has been developed that will flag a document with an error message if (a) a supplier is selected in a
document and doesn’t have a supplier profile set up or if (b) a supplier is selected in a document while being labelled as
not approved in their supplier profile. Both error messages direct the user to Bill Kennedy for further instruction

30. Reliance Development (cont’d)
• Automatic Supplier E-mail Notification
– Previously, a supplier profile would leave the Co-Op and move to a “Quality Review” phase where AJ Jahan would send
an e-mail providing login instructions as well as some introduction material into Reliance.
– Through Reliance, this e-mail is now automatically sent to the supplier as well as to Bill Kennedy, AJ Jahan, and the
commodity manager automatically after being sent forward from the co-op, complete with all the information that was
previously in it.
• Supplier Profile Improvements
– The supplier profile now has the ability to accept four different contacts for the Quality Contact, Buyer Contact, and the
Sales Contact (one for each division).
– The division is automatically populated for each of these records should the contact have a Raypak or HTPG e-mail
address.
– In the future, Reliance e-mails regarding the supplier will be sent using this contact information rather than the contact
information contained in Enterprise Configuration System, which will allow for more flexibility in who is notified at each
company.
• Raypak DPAP Lab Inspection Template
– The Raypak DPAP documents have had a Lab Inspection Template created and synced up to Reliance so that by exporting
the spreadsheet from Reliance, the fields will automatically be populated with information that had been entered into
the online version of the form.

31. Reliance Maintenance
• Reliance Upkeep
– Updated the Supplier Vendor Number for all Suppliers in Reliance with their designation in
Oracle Business Intelligence.
– Maintained the information contained in the user profiles of over 3000 users of the
Reliance System.
– Oversaw the creation and maintenance of Supplier Profiles and Quality Questionnaires for
the supplier of parts for all four Rheem divisions.
– Kept Deviations that involve part substitutions updated with the correct Deviation costs.

32. Reporting
• Warranty Reporting
– Investigations into leak rates for the three WHD plants
– Investigation what percentage of produced Marathon units are used to replace those damaged in the
field using the Sales and Credits Issued Quantity fields in Rheem Sales Analytics. The results are shown
below:
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Failure Rates
Heavy Duty Marathon Standard Marathon

33. Reporting (cont’d)
– Provided a statistical breakdown for AC products’ claims that gives the mean, median, and
mode of the number of days between the production date and the install date and the
production date and the shipping date. This breakdown was provided for the following
parameters:
• Coils
• Heat Pumps
• ACNL Gas Furnace
• All HVAC products
– Provided reporting on claims that could be traced back to the cracked corrugated gas lines
in the burner assemblies.
– Helped assemble a master report containing information on warranty spending broken
down into claims, labor claims, and part claims by production year.
• Other Reporting Tasks
– Quarterly Supplier Ratings
– On Time Delivery Ratings
– Monthly PPM-SNCR Scorecards

34. Co-Op Experience Takeaways
Personal Gains from the Co-Operative Work Experience:
• Learning how to efficiently work with others to accomplish goals in a timely manner.
• Learning time management skills, including how to prioritize different tasks given to me and how
to keep everybody involved “in the loop” on the progress of these different tasks.
• A fundamental understanding of the different components of a water heater and how a granular
idea of the different failure modes the different models of water heater can experience and how to
troubleshoot them.
• A greater experience in coding in a variety of languages, including but not limited to Python,
Javascript, HTML, SQL, and VBA.
• A good experience in being given the freedom to design solutions to complex problems and
learning problem solving skills while working on these problems.
• Learning how the Quality Department fits in the grand scheme of a manufacturing company and
how important it is in ensuring that our products exceed the standards set by our customers.

35. Recap
• Worked in Failure Analysis
• Developed Early Warning System
• Performed a variety of reporting tasks
• Developed additional functionality in Reliance
Thank you for your time and the opportunity to work for Rheem Manufacturing this
year!