Reliability

Reliability can be defined as the ability of a product, part or system to perform its intended function under a prescribed set of conditions. Situation in which a product, part or system does not perform as intended is called failure. High quality doesnt necessarily mean high reliability. Reliability is so important since poor reliability can impact reputation, customer satisfaction, warranty costs, repeat business & competitive advantage negatively. Main source of failure are design failure, facility failure, staff failure, supplier failure, cust failure and env disruption. Major root cause of most failures are human failure, that means failure can control to some extent. MTBF & MTTR are 2 important measures for measuring failure rates. Availability can be defined as Availability = MTBF / (MTBF + MTTR) & Failure rate can be defined as 1/MTBF. We can improve the reliability through redundancy. That means by using the backup components. Examples are 2 eyes, 2 kidneys and 2 engines for an aircraft. Other techniques for improving reliability are Through component design. Through production / assembly techniques. Testing. Backups Preventive maintenance procedures. User education. Proper system design. Failure rate can be represented by a bathtub curve.