A group of manufacturing engineers based in the Northwest has formed an alliance to discover new approaches and explore new technologies related to product reliability. Calling itself the Northwest Reliability Forum, the group is composed of representatives from Hewlett-Packard Co., Xerox Corp., Textronix, NACCO Materials Handling Group, Portland State University, Engineering Design Consultants, and NinaTek. Quarterly forums will be scheduled, with the next forums to be held in September and January. The committee is currently in process of lining up speakers. The forums will focus on product reliability as it relates to design, theory, analysis and product management. More information is available at www.ninatek.com.