The topics within this Blueprint emphasize the premise that inherent reliability performance begins at the initial design stages, such as part selection and environmental control, and continues through the build, test and modification phases. This Blueprint contains detailed descriptions of all the needed design tasks, including critical item identification, thermal design techniques, fault tolerance needs, modeling procedures and trade-off, dormancy considerations, sneak circuit applications, part obsolescence criteria, testing strategies, and more. Task priorities are clearly identified, along with advantages and disadvantages of their application. A reliability task benefit table is included that guides the user in the appropriate selection of tasks for environmental conditions, criticality application and complexity of the product under consideration. Assessing Reliability Progress RBPR-4 Assessment is a broad term that includes all techniques used to determine a product design status.
Assessment includes analysis, modeling, simulation and testing.
Analysis and modeling are considered the key elements, either can be accomplished early in the design process at much lower costs than simulation or testing. This report includes detailed approaches on how and when to apply progress assessment tasks such as durability analysis, dormancy analysis, finite element analysis, failure mode analysis, fault tree analysis, design of experiments, growth testing and others. Each task is presented with sufficient detail to direct the user on how to perform it, how to interpret the results and how to integrate the result into the design process. Specific examples of the use of each technique are included as guides. Reliability, like all other product characteristics, needs to be measured at various times and in various ways, depending on the program.