bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Application of a multi‐model approach to estimating residual software faults and time between failures
Authors: Bowen John B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper reports the results of applying a multi‐model interactive computer program called SMERFS (statistical modelling and estimation of reliability functions for software) to a large air defence system project. SMERFS includes four fault‐count models and four time‐between‐failure models which were applied at the compilation unit and computer software configuration item level. The four fault‐count models yielded reasonable results supported by acceptable fits for nine of the ten compilation units. The four time‐between‐failure models yielded reasonable results with acceptable fits for all compilation units. A validation of the SMERFS results was attempted by truncating the latter developmental data from the input data, and by using the latter data in lieu of operational data. With the exception of one fault‐count model, no models accurately predicted the simulated operational data.
The influence of climatic conditions on the reliability of electronic components in telephone exchanges
Authors: Lelievre A. , Goarin R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper shows the significant influence of climatic conditions on the reliability of components in telephone exchanges. The great number of observations made enabled numerous data to be collected. Sophisticated data processing was used using data analysis methods, in particular factor analysis. Prominence was thus given to the various parameters affecting the reliability of components (temperature, hygrometry, location of the board, air conditioning process…). A physical analysis of the failure of components complemented the statistical study. It resulted in taking practical measures to improve the field reliability of French telecommunication equipment.
Quality assurance technologies for vlsi manufacturing
Authors: Kohoutek Henry J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractConsidering the fundamental aims of VLSI Manufacturing and objectives of the Quality Assurance and Quality Control programs, three technologies, namely Dimensional Metrology, Material Analysis, and Statistical Methods of Process Control, emerge as key to success. The bewildering array of methods, instrumentation alternatives, and process states and variables to be controlled, make Quality Assurance and control activities as complex as the VLSI manufacturing itself, and demand a long‐term commitment by all management, engineering, and work force teams involved.
Considerations in the use of optimal preventive maintenance policies
Authors: Zaino Nicholas A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractDesigning products which require maintenance always involves compromises between reliability and maintainability. Both scheduled and preventive maintenance (PM) should be considered in the design phases of a product so that the design can include features to ease the maintenance task. In addition, many design decisions based on Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Pareto criticality rankings, etc., could and should be strongly influenced by the potential for using preventive maintenance. A component that has a major negative impact on system reliability (because of its life distribution) could become much less consequential if appropriate PM policies are implemented. This paper describes the use of an easy‐to‐implement analysis procedure to assist a designer or systems analyst in making the reliability/maintainability tradeoff.
Quality assurance education and training in the U.K.
Authors: Oakland John S. , Grayson Ric 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper deals with the part that education and training plays in the achievement of quality.The initial section examines the role of the Government sponsored Directory of Quality Training and Education in the U.K. and the aims of the National Quality Campaign. It assesses how successful the courses outlined in the Directory might be in providing sufficient stimulus for a change in attitude towards quality within industry particulraly with regard to satisfying the identified aims of the campaign. The conclusions that are drawn as a result indicate that there are several problems that need to be resolved before progress can be assured.The final section details what progress has already been made in the pursuit of improved quality and looks at various alternative methods of education and training that have been proposed to aid the process of change.
Purple plague: Eliminated or just forgotten?
Authors: Footner P. K. , Richards B. P. , Yates R. B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe reappearance of ‘purple plague’ as a reliability and failure risk in current IC devices has led to renewed interest in the precise failure mechanisms and eventual failure mode. These are outlined and illustrated with examples of recent failures in plastic encapsulated integrated circuits, hermetically sealed integrated circuits and hybrids. The reasons for the reappearance of this type of failure are discussed, and it is shown that the problem may be expected to increase in future generation devices.
Influence of quality of manufacture on electronic equipment and system reliability
Authors: Ender Urs , Gerling Wolfgang 
Published: July 2007

AbstractFor electronic equipment and systems a correspondance of predominant faults is observed during the electrical test phases at board and at system level prior to use, and during subsequent application of the system. Relationships are expected based on the common causes of these faults. Such faults might be those that have escaped detection during electrical testing, faults that induce secondary latent defects on parts, or original latent defects incorporated in the installed components. Causes and effects are discussed.Measures have been taken over several years to improve the manufacturing quality of electronic equipment following these aspects. It is shown, by practical experience with an electronic communication system, that an improvement of manufacturing quality by a factor of 5 has increased system reliability by about the same degree.This noticeable effect of the manufacturing quality of printed circuit board assemblies on the reliability of the system and on the failure rates of installed components is not considered by usual reliability prediction models. The observed failure rates of components are low when compared to values of prediction models, even including those component types contributing to focal points of failure with the achieved level of reliability.
Off‐line quality control and ill‐designed data
Authors: Logothetis N. 
Published: July 2007

Abstract‘Bad’ data resulting from ill‐designed experiments or in‐production/after‐production monitoring require a careful use of proper statistical techniques for their analysis. Prior exploration of the available data is of paramout importance especially if we wish to apply off‐line quality control techniques such as the Taguchi method. A stepwise approach is proposed involving data analysis and straightforward significance tests, which can ensure statistically valid and useful conclusions.
Component reliability assessment and assurance using a new step‐stress test
Authors: Aagesen Svend M. , Stevenson John L. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSeveral features of accelerated reliability testing are surveyed in this paper. A new technique for the practical evaluation of reliability under thermally induced acceleration is introduced. This procedure is termed the reverse‐step‐stress test, and involves a decrease in applied stress after some pre‐specified failure criterion has been met within a fixed sample of components. An analysis is presented which confirms that the reverse‐step‐stress test can reveal failures having low activation energies that would not be detectable in conventional constant‐stress, high temperature testing.
The organization of a study of the field failure of electronic components
Authors: Campbell D. S. , Hayes J. A. , Hetherington D. R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper describes the organization that has been evolved for the collection and analysis of field failure data. A summary breakdown is given of the data collection organization, the Data Format and the methodology of Data Analysis.Preliminary studies show the system is working.The concept of superpopulation has been established in order to judge the relative importance of data as it is accumulated.
Recognizing the optimum burn‐in period
Authors: Shaw Martin 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIt is generally accepted within the reliability discipline that component failures occur when the strength of the component ie less than the stresses imposed. Due to the unavoidable variations in processing and materials, it will not be unusul to find component or product strength distributions that are bimodal in nature, consisting of a mixture of two Weibull distributions (i.e. weak and strong component distributions).This paper presents an analysis of both field performance and burn‐in data collated over a period of time on one particular type of display unit which clearly exhibits some form of bimodality.The text also explains in detail the manner in which optimum burn‐in duration can be computed via a Weibull plotting technique or by applying the sequential burn‐in procedure.
Fatigue reliability assessment of offshore structures
Authors: Kam J. C. P. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSubstantial laboratory and field experience has indicated that, owing to the large number of wave stress cyles experienced by offshore steel structures, fatigue cracking should be the main consideration of structural reliability assessment.This paper presents the latest implementation of probabilistic fracture mechanics modelling for fatigue reliability analysis of the most common offshore structural component, the welded tubular joints. Coupled with the recent findings in inspection reliability, effective maintenance and integrity monitoring policies can be formulated.Examples of many practical situations have been analysed to illustrate the applications of the methodology.
A managerial tool for process capability analysis
Authors: Holmes Donald S. , Mergen A. Erhan 
Published: July 2007

AbstractMeasures of process capability are usually presented in straight numerical form. In this paper we present a technique which displays process capability measures graphically. We call this technique a Z‐Cp chart. It is a very simple and practical descriptive statistics tool which allows managers to see graphically how the different product lines are performing or how a given process is doing over time.
Accounting for maintenance in a computer memory reliability prediction model
Authors: Miller Jeffrey E. , Hecht Hebert , Morris Seymour 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper reviews the benefit of periodic maintenance for improving the reliability of computer memory protected by error detection and correction (EDAC), and presents a new memory reliability model that accounts for such maintenance. Mean time to failure (MTTF) has been the traditional figure of merit for assessing the benefit of memory maintenance. This paper proposes failure probability calculated at maintenance intervals as a more meaningful figure of merit for periodically maintained systems and presents examples using the new model.
Parameter tolerance design for electrical circuits
Authors: Ilumoka A. , Spence R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractRealistic circuit design requires that unavoidable tolerances on component parameters be taken into account, particularly in situations where a circuit is to be mass‐produced. Since specifications are normally imposed on circuit performance, parameter tolerances can have the undesirable effect of reducing manufacturing yield (i.e. the percentage of circuits which meet specifications) to values below unity, thereby effectively increasing circuit cost.Approaches have been developed to electrical circuit design which incorporate aspects of parameter tolerance variations at the various stages of design, thus enabling tolerance effects to be assessed and minimized. There are two principal approaches: statistical and deterministic. The first uses probabilistic techniques to predict variations in circuit performance, whereas the second uses deterministic (i.e. non‐stochastic) methods. Within each group, three types of problems are important: first, the maximization of yield, secondly, the minimization of circuit unit cost and, thirdly, the minimization of performance variability. This paper discusses some important advances in the statistical approach to tolerance design. Monte Carlo analysis is almost invariably an important component of the procedure: random fluctuations in parameter values are simulated according to some probability density function and inserted into a computer circuit simulation program which computes corresponding circuit performance variations. The procedure — also referred to as tolerance analysis — not only allows the designer to predict expected performance fluctuations but also presents him with information regarding the relative location of acceptable and non‐acceptable circuits in component parameter space. The Monte Carlo method can handle without difficult any number of component parameters and performance functions; moreover, statistical dependence among parameters is readily handled.The algorithm presented here is experimentally validated through successful design of practical circuits and is applicable to both discrete and integrated circuits. Strategies which ensure computational efficiency of the methods are discussed and a cost/benefit analysis carried out for a typical circuit.
A methodology for planning experiments in robust product and process design
Authors: Shoemaker Anne C. , Kacker Raghu N. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractRobust design is an important method for improving product manufacturability and life, and for increasing manufacturing process stability and yield. In 1980 Genichi Taguchi introduced his approach to using statistically planned experiments in robust product and process design to U.S. industry. Since then, the robust design problem and Taguchi's approach to solving it has received much attention from product designers, manufacturers, statisticians and quality professionals. Although most agree on the importance of the robust design problem, controversy over some of the specific methods used to solve the problem has made this an active research area.Although the answers are not all in yet, the importance of the problem has led to development of a four‐step methodology for implementing robust design. The steps are (1) formulate the problem by stating objectives and then listing and classifying product or process variables, (2) plan an experiment to study these variables, (3) identify improved settings of controllable variables from the experiment's results and (4) confirm the improvement in a small follow‐up experiment.This paper presents a methodology for the problem formulation and experiment planning steps. We give practical guidelines for making key decisions in these two steps, including choice of response characteristics, and specification of interactions and test levels for variables. We describe how orthogonal arrays and interaction graphs can be used to simplify the process of planning an experiment. We also compare the experiment planning strategies we are recommending to those of Taguchi and to more traditional approaches.
An explanation and critique of taguchi's contributions to quality engineering
Authors: Box George , Bisgaard Søren , Fung Conrad 
Published: July 2007

AbstractRecently there has been much interest and some controversy concerning the statistical methods employed by Professor Genichi Taguchi of Japan for improving the quality of products and processes. These methods include the use of fractional factorial designs and other orthogonal arrays, parameter design to minimize sensitivity to environmental factors, parameter design for minimizing transmitted variation, signal‐to‐noise ratios, loss functions, accumulation analysis, minute analysis and the analysis of life test data. This paper explains some of Taguchi's contributions to quality engineering and also provides a critical evaluation of his statistical methods. Our conclusion is that although on the one hand, Professor Taguchi's quality engineering ideas are of great importance and should become part of the working knowledge of every engineer, on the other hand, many of the techniques of statistical design and analysis he employs to put these ideas into practice are often inefficient and unnecessarily complicated and should be replaced or appropriately modified. In this short article only an overview is attempted, but references are appended where these matters are discussed in greater detail.
Better than Taguchi orthogonal tables
Authors: Shainin Dorian , Shainin Peter 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThere has been a great amount of publicity about Taguchi orthogonal tables. This paper will evaluate the pros and cons of that approach. In addition an American approach, having the same initial goals of the Taguchi approach, will be presented in detail, representing a significant improvement in meeting those goals without confounding interactions with any main effect or with other interactions. In addition, this constructive alternative generally requires a much smaller number of tests.
Characterizing and optimizing multi‐response processes by the taguchi method
Authors: Logothetis N. , Haigh A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn this paper we demonstrate the ability of the Taguchi technique accurately to characterize and successfully to optimize complicated multi‐response processes with the minimum of experiments, provided one uses simple statistical techniques which can ensure valid, and definitive results. We point out the usefulness of suitable data‐transformations, and we suggest a systematic procedure for establishing the optimal operating conditions and for carrying out confirmatory experiments.For the particular case detailed in this paper (which is typical of multi‐response processes) the Taguchi technique achieved an improvement in uniformity of a factor of 2, together with optimized process control.
Estimating the error of an effect in unreplicated 2‐level fractional factorial designs
Authors: Wang Wenhao , Lawson John 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSaturated fractional factorial experimental designs and orthogonal main effect plans are extremely valuable tools in quality engineering. However, one problem with these designs is that there are no replicate runs to be used for estimating experimental error. This note develops an estimator of the experimental error based on the hypothesis that not all factor effects will be non‐zero. A joint Bayesian prior distribution is presented for the experimental error variance of an effect, σ2, and the probability that each effect is non‐zero. From this prior distribution a posterior marginal distribution for σ2 is derived along with a direct estimate of σ2. This method is compared with the traditional methods of estimating σ2 in unreplicated designs through a numerical example.
Annotated bibliography of books on experimental design
Authors: Hahn G. J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThere is now a large number of books on experimental design on the market. This review provides an annotated bibliography of some texts. They have been selected for their general interest and relevance to industry, and are based in part upon information provided by the authors.A summary table is included which indicates the major topic areas covered, the technical level, the emphasized field of application, and other pertinent information.The determination of which books to include and exclude is necessarily a somewhat arbitrary one. In general the guide is limited to those that deal principally with ‘design of experiments’; thus books that are mainly concerned with analysing experimental data and linear models have been excluded.Similarly, judgement was required in describing the books and in preparing the summary table.Further information on other books that deal with ‘design of experiments’ is available in my contribution on the same topic as printed in the Encyclopaedia of Statistical Sciences, Vol. 2 (Wiley, 1982) of which this survey is an edited version. It is reproduced by kind permission of the editors of The Encyclopaedia of Statistical Sciences, Samual Kotz, Norman Johnson and Campbell B. Read.
Death by a thousand cuts: The physics of device failure through a series of activated, microscopic events
Authors: Holden A. J. , Allen R. W. , Beasley K. , Parker D. R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractA physical model describes device failure in terms of a series of n microscopic events (such as defect creation) which are describable in terms of an identifiable activation energy. The results show a ‘Weibull like’ time dependence, but the temperature dependence is not of the simple Arrhenius form. Application is made to the ‘dark’ leakage current in a PIN photodiode and to the deviation in threshold voltage in a MOSFET. In particular the threshold voltage is shown to depend on a series of activated processes, and the required number of such processes to cause failure increases with the width of the gate electrode.
A study of the quality management methods employed by U.K. automotive suppliers
Authors: Lascelles D. M. , Dale B. G. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper reports on the results of a postal questionnaire survey of quality management methods, awareness and attitudes of suppliers to three major companies in the U.K. automotive industry. The main issues discussed include the quality management systems operated by suppliers, the methods by which quality improvement is pursued, quality‐related training, and suppliers' interaction with both their own customers and vendors.The findings to specific questions were disappointing and illustrate the poor state of quality management development in some suppliers; overall the survey evidence indicates that many suppliers have a traditional attitude towards quality management. For example: it is possible to inspect quality into a product; component quality can be graded at different levels according to individual customer requirements; if the customer does not return the product then quality must be satisfactory; the quality manager is responsible for the quality improvement programme. Quality management tools and techniques are often seen as an end in themselves rather than a means to an end, that of improvement. It is clear that a number of suppliers assume that introducing statistical process control is the same as developing a total approach to quality management. There also appears to be a dilution of the quality message as requirements are passed down the supply chain, and in general communication and feedback between customer and supplier is poor.