TABLE OF CONTENTS How can practical engineers and managers make use of the evaluation, prediction, and analysis of product durability, reliability, failures, degradation, etc. after using current techniques and equipment for accelerated testing?
Where can they obtain accurate initial information in these matters?
From a practical viewpoint, this is only possible after prolonged field testing. However, field testing is too expensive and not very effective for the accelerated evaluation and improvement of the product.
If one does the above after accelerated laboratory testing, the test results for most types of products will differ from field reliability testing, because one does not take into account the following:
accurate physical simulation of field input influences in the laboratory: all basic types of field input influences on the product, simultaneously and in combination, as they act in the field, and the character of change of these influences in the field;
the influence of the operator's reliability on the product reliability;
changes in the technological process of the product use during its working time, etc.
As a result, there is a low correlation between the accelerated testing results (degradation, failures, etc.) and the field reliability test results. Therefore the above laboratory testing cannot give initial information for accurate prediction of the field durability, reliability, maintainability, minimum or zero reduction of time and cost of reliability improvement and the development process in practice. As a result, it is not accurate to prefer...
