The challenge of quantitative reliability

After examining the need of the equipment/system user to receive, collect, analyse and supply quantitative reliability information, this paper discusses the methods, existing and potential, of satisfying this need. It does so against the background of the now widely acknowledged inaccuracy of traditional methods of reliability prediction, the recognition that the conventional failure-rate bathtub curve is an oversimplification and the difficulty of gathering adequate test and field failure data on increasingly high-reliability product in an age of fast technology evolution and short new product lead-time markets. There are three important tasks for the equipment user: (a) establishment of an efficient system of failure data collection and analysis; (b) utilization of these data in all business and organizational activities; (c) participation in the creation of an accurate method of reliability prediction by providing feedback of field reliability data to product manufacturers.