Occasionally, I find myself referring back to one or another of the "text" quality books on reliability. There are several excellent books of this kind in the market place and they provide a comprehensive treatment of many of the techniques used to analyze and manage reliability. These books are steeped in statistics and the rigorous mathematics needed to perform a reliability analysis. As the science of reliability has gained a foothold among all the other engineering disciplines being taught to young people, these books have become the texts used to guide the course work. As a result, they are as important as textbooks used in courses like statics, dynamics, thermodynamics, and fluids.

Definitions:

Throughout this book, I will insert "definitions" at points where I believe they will assist the reader. These are not intended to be dictionary definitions. They are intended to describe how the term is being used in the context of the current discussion.

But recalling back, when I began working as a mechanical engineer, the things I learned in college and the books I used were of limited value. There was a group of older, experienced engineers, who taught me how to apply the subjects I learned in college to real world applications.

When I was a young Air Force officer I designed a number of fairly complicated air conditioning systems for the large computer buildings housing old mainframe computers of the distant past. Although my course work in thermodynamics helped me understand how the physical world...