Reliability Engineering: Theory and Practice

Reliability Engineering is an outgrowth of materials assembled for a Design for Reliability graduate engineering course and is meant to describe the underlying principles and assumptions of reliability engineering as applied to a wide set of topics. The book (and the course) has evolved over time toward a more pragmatic, "how to" approach. This approach, coupled with a large reliance on diverse Internet-based resources, lends itself to a dry, disperse, almost brutal writing style and the author apologizes to the reader in advance. This book focuses on the theory and practice of reliable system design and development. Methodologies include Reliability Block Diagrams (RBD), Design for Reliability (DfR), Design for Manufacturability (DfM), IEEE 1149.1 standards, Thermal and Stress Design, Markov Models, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), FMEA and FMECA, Physics of Failure, Duane's Method, AMSAA, Network/System Modeling, Reliability Bounding Methods, Simulation Techniques. In addition, students are introduced to process reliability strategies such as CMMI, Total Productive Maintenance, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma methods, TQM, Business Process Re-engineering, and ITIL.