Reliability growth test management is a feasible method for identifying failure modes, implementing design changes and monitoring reliability progress on an on-going basis during the early phases of a product development program. Implementation of this particular process will provide very useful information on concept selection, product/process reliability, and cost effectiveness without exorbitant time, money and engineering effort being spent on the development of failure suspect parts. Recent experience with the testing of automotive components has led to a practical method for efficiently organizing, initiating, and monitoring a reliability growth test process under a competitive automobile environment.
Analysis techniques to be presented address product/process design concerns and validation testing issues by providing 1) timely reliability growth progress, 2) practice tests leading up to validation, and 3) confidence limits with test time. Performing such activities as identifying operating environments, developing growth test curves from the results, examining the results for various relationships between design iterations, and linking the information with other product assurance analyses help to properly evaluate a product's conformance to customer requirements.
Reliability growth test management is a part of the product assurance function that plays a significant role in product/process reliability improvement.