SELF STUDY REPORT

RELIABILITY
ENGINEERING

KARTIK GUPTA
2K13/PE/016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. V. Jeganathan Arulmoni for his
support and guidance towards the completion of this self study project on the
topic Reliability Engineering .
I would also like to thank him for giving me the opportunity to embark on this
project as it has enhanced my knowledge and has helped me learn a lot.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
OBECTIVES OF RELIABILITY ENGINEERING
WHY IS RELIABILITY IMPORTANT
REASONS FOR FAILURE
MEASURING RELIABILITY
RELIABILITY PREDICTION
DESIGN FOR RELIABILITY
RELIABILITY TESTING
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIABILITY AND QUALITY?
WHAT IS SIX SIGMA
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
Reliability engineering is engineering that emphasizes dependability in
the lifecycle management of a product. Dependability, or reliability, describes the
ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a
specified period of time.
Reliability is theoretically defined as the probability of success (Reliability=1Probability of Failure), as the frequency of failures, or in terms of availability, as a
probability derived from reliability and
maintainability. Maintainability and maintenance is often defined as a part of
"reliability engineering" in Reliability Programs.
Reliability engineering deals with the estimation and management of high levels
of "lifetime" engineering uncertainty and risks of failure.
Reliability engineering consists of the systematic application of time-honored
engineering principles and techniques throughout a product lifecycle and is thus
an essential component of a good Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) program.
The goal of reliability engineering is to evaluate the inherent reliability of a
product or process and pinpoint potential areas for reliability improvement.
Realistically, all failures cannot be eliminated from a design, so another goal of
reliability engineering is to identify the most likely failures and then identify
appropriate actions to mitigate the effects of those failures.
"Reliability is, after all, engineering in its most practical form."

OBJECTIVES OF RELIABILITY ENGINEERING

The objectives of reliability engineering, in the order of priority, are:
1. To apply engineering knowledge and specialist techniques to prevent or to
reduce the likelihood or frequency of failures.
2. To identify and correct the causes of failures that do occur, despite the
efforts to prevent them.
3. To determine ways of coping with failures that do occur, if their causes
have not been corrected.
4. To apply methods for estimating the likely reliability of new designs, and for
analysing reliability data.

Fig A Basic project life cycle

WHY IS RELIABILITY IMPORTANT?

There are a number of reasons why reliability is an important product attribute,
including:

Reputation. A company's reputation is very closely related to the reliability

of its products. The more reliable a product is, the more likely the company is
to have a favorable reputation.
Customer Satisfaction. While a reliable product may not dramatically affect
customer satisfaction in a positive manner, an unreliable product will
negatively affect customer satisfaction severely. Thus high reliability is a
mandatory requirement for customer satisfaction.
Warranty Costs. If a product fails to perform its function within the warranty
period, the replacement and repair costs will negatively affect profits, as well
as gain unwanted negative attention. Introducing reliability analysis is an
important step in taking corrective action, ultimately leading to a product
that is more reliable.
Repeat Business. A concentrated effort towards improved reliability shows
existing customers that a manufacturer is serious about its product, and
committed to customer satisfaction. This type of attitude has a positive
impact on future business.
Cost Analysis. Manufacturers may take reliability data and combine it with
other cost information to illustrate the cost-effectiveness of their products.
This life cycle cost analysis can prove that although the initial cost of a
product might be higher, the overall lifetime cost is lower than that of a
competitor's because their product requires fewer repairs or less
maintenance.
Customer Requirements. Many customers in today's market demand that
their suppliers have an effective reliability program. These customers have
learned the benefits of reliability analysis from experience.
Competitive Advantage. Many companies will publish their predicted
reliability numbers to help gain an advantage over their competitors who
either do not publish their numbers or have lower numbers.

REASONS FOR FAILURE

The load and strength of an item may be generally known, however there will
always be an element of uncertainty. The actual strength values of any population
of components will vary; there will be some that are relatively strong, others that
are relatively weak, but most will be of nearly average strength. Similarly there
will be some loads greater than others but mostly they will be average. Figure 1,
below shows the load strength relationship with no overlaps.

However if, as shown in figure 2, there is an overlap of the two distributions then
failures will occur. There therefore needs to be a safety margin to ensure that
there is no overlap of these distributions.

MEASURING RELIABILITY
REQUIREMENTS
Many customers will produce a statement of the reliability requirements that is
included in the specification of the product. This statement should include the
following:
The definition of failure related to the products function and should cover all
failure modes relevant to the function
A full description of the environments in which the product will be stored,
transported, operated and maintained
A statement of the reliability requirement

THE BATH TUB CURVE

The bath-tub curve is a representation of the reliability performance of
components or non repaired items. It observes the reliability performance of a
large sample of homogenous items entering the field at some start time (usually
zero). If we observe the items over their lifetime without replacement then we
can observe three distinct shapes or periods
The infant mortality or early failures portion shows that the population will
initially experience a high hazard function that starts to decrease. This period of
time represents the burn-in or debugging period where weak items are weeded
out. After the initial phase when the weak components have been weeded out
and mistakes corrected, the remaining population reaches a relatively constant
hazard function period, known as the useful life period. From figure 3 you can see
that the hazard function is constant, this shape can be modelled by the
exponential distribution (see section 2.3) when failure are occurring randomly
through time. The final portion of the bath-tub curve is called the wear-out phase,
this is when the hazard function increases with time.

LIFE DISTRIBUTIONS
If you take a large number of measurements you can draw a histogram to show
the how the measurements vary. A more useful diagram, for continuous data, is
the probability density function. The y axis is the percentage measured in a
range(shown on the x-axis) rather than the frequency as in a histogram. If you
reduce the ranges(or intervals) then the histogram becomes a curve which
describes the distribution of the measurements or values. This distribution is the
probability density function or PDF.

The survival function and is given by R(t)

PARTICULAR LIFE DISTRIBUTIONS

The exponential Distribution :

The Weibull Distribution :

RELIABILITY PREDICTION

Assuming all the parts in a system are independently exponentially distributed,

i.e. one part does not cause the other to fail then the overall system failure rate
can be calculated using the series system model shown above. For example, the
failure rate of a printed circuit board is the sum of the failure rates of each of the
components.

DESIGN FOR RELIABILITY

The objective of design for reliability is to design a given product that meets its
requirements under the specified environmental conditions. To achieve this good
sound engineering design rules should be followed. However there are a few
general principles that should observed, these include:
Component selection well-established and known components should be
used (company usually have their own approved components list). If this is not he
case then analysis must be done to check the component is fit for purpose.
Consider the load-strength relationship and ensure there is an adequate safety
margin.
Minimum complexity
Diversity avoids common mode failures
Analyze failure modes and their effects (FMEA)
Identify any single point failures and either mitigate or design them out.
Use lessons learned from previous products to design out any known
weaknesses.

RELIABILITY TESTING
The purpose of reliability testing is to discover potential problems with the design
as early as possible and, ultimately, provide confidence that the system meets its
reliability requirements.
Reliability testing may be performed at several levels and there are different
types of testing. Complex systems may be tested at component, circuit board,
unit, assembly, subsystem and system levels

EXAMPLE OF RELIABILITY VARYING OVER THE LIFE CYCLE

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIABILITY AND QUALITY?

Even though a product has a reliable design, when the product is manufactured
and used in the field, its reliability may be unsatisfactory. The reason for this low
reliability may be that the product was poorly manufactured. So, even though the
product has a reliable design, it is effectively unreliable when fielded, which is
actually the result of a substandard manufacturing process. As an example, cold
solder joints could pass initial testing at the manufacturer, but fail in the field as
the result of thermal cycling or vibration. This type of failure did not occur
because of an improper design, but rather it is the result of an inferior
manufacturing process. So while this product may have a reliable design, its
quality is unacceptable because of the manufacturing process.
Just like a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a highly reliable product is
only as good as the inherent reliability of the product and the quality of the
manufacturing process.

WHAT IS SIX SIGMA?

Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives
for near perfection. Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and
methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations
between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process from
manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.
The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process
is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4
defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything
outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total
quantity of chances for a defect.

CONCLUSION
Ultimately the aim for reliability engineering is to maximize reliability during
service life by measurement & control of manufacturing, quality / screening,
optimized design & build process to improve intrinsic reliability, assure no
systematic faults present in product and to provide sufficient margin to meet life
requirements.
Thus all these factors lead to customer satisfaction which is of utmost importance
to every manufacturer.

REFERENCES
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/ftmsc/modules/modulelist/peuss
/slides/section_7a_reliability_notes.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
http://www.weibull.com/basics/reliability.htm
http://www.lce.com/Whats_the_role_of_the_Reliability_Engineer_373item.html
https://learnable.com/books/the-principles-of-projectmanagement/online/ch01s02
http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/getting-started/what-sixsigma/