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Probability and Statistics for Reliability: An Introduction

Probability and Statistics for Reliability: An Introduction
Painful as it is to many of us, the generally desirable product characteristic Reliability is heavily dependent on Probability and Statistics for measuring and describing its characteristics. This edition of Reliability Ques will only be the tip of the iceberg in this regard. Let’s start with a few basics:

…  Read More

March 26th, 2005|

Better Reliability Predictions Using Experience Data

Better Reliability Predictions Using Experience Data
There are many approaches that can be used to predict the reliability of an item. Sometimes when asked to provide a “quick estimate” of an item’s reliability, the use of field experience is overlooked, or if no failures have occurred, overly conservative estimates are made by assuming one failure. This…  Read More

February 26th, 2005|

Reliability: Costly, or Cost Effective?

Reliability: Costly, or Cost Effective?
There are those who would argue that the costs of reliability activities associated with developing new products have little payoff. Whether we’re talking about commercial products or military systems, we don’t agree. Concepts like Life Cycle Costs, Total Ownership Costs, Reliability-based Maintenance, Performance-Based Logistics, and others clearly recognize the contribution of…  Read More

October 26th, 2004|

Reliability Predictions: Parts Count, Part Stress, Pseudo Stress and Dormant

Reliability Predictions: Parts Count, Part Stress, Pseudo Stress and Dormant
Reliability predictions are an important tool for making design trade-off decisions and estimating future system reliability. They are often used for making initial product support decisions such as how many spares are required to support fielded systems. Inaccurate predictions can lead to overly conservative designs and/or…  Read More

September 26th, 2004|

QuART PRO Now Available from Quanterion

Quanterion Solutions Incorporated announces the release of the PRO version of the Quanterion Automated Reliability Toolkit (QuART PRO). The new product represents the expansion of its QuART set of tools to now include more than twenty automated tools and advisors in the field of reliability engineering. The PRO version, introduced at $189, is intended for…  Read More

July 27th, 2004|Tags: |

Reliability Knowledge? Who? What? Where?

Reliability Knowledge? Who? What? Where?
This article is the first in a series addressing the availability of reliability knowledge, who has it and how you can take advantage of it to improve products and systems. Despite a broad interest in reliability, there is a general lack of coordination of the efforts of many disparate organizations dealing…  Read More

July 26th, 2004|

Warranty Cost: An Introduction

Warranty Cost: An Introduction
Whether your company is marketing commercial products or selling to the Government, warranties are an important ingredient to competitive success. Effective warranty planning can ensure success, but lack of attention to cost analyses can spell disaster. This article is intended to introduce the basics of warranties and to identify sources for more…  Read More

April 26th, 2004|

Understanding Your Product Through Reliability Modeling

Understanding Your Product Through Reliability Modeling
A reliability model represents a clear picture of your product’s functional interdependencies providing a means to trade-off design alternatives and to identify areas for design improvement. The models are also helpful in:

Identifying of critical items and single points of failure
Allocating reliability goals to portions of the design
Providing…  Read More

March 26th, 2004|

How Much Reliability is Enough?

How Much Reliability is Enough?

Reliability is defined as performance of a function over time, whether it applies to a commercial product or a military system. Commercial product reliability is usually driven by such factors as warranty cost goals, competitive marketing strategies, and liability concerns while the military wants to meet the operational needs of users…  Read More

February 26th, 2004|

Army Awards PROTOCOL to Quanterion

The U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center at Restone Arsenal, Alabama has awarded Quanterion Solutions of Utica a $726,000 two year contract to develop a Product Reliability On-line Tools Collection (PROTOCOL) software engineering environment. The award, part of the federal government Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program was based on a competitive procurement and…  Read More

February 3rd, 2003|Tags: , |