To be competitive, manufacturers need to know how things fail, as well as how things work.  The combination of physics-of-failure and best practices is an approach to the development of cost-effective reliable products that focuses on how things can fail through an understanding of the root causes of failure.

The goal is to answer the following questions:

    (1) How can the supplier measure how well he is doing?

    (2) What kind of reliability assurances can a supplier give to a customer?

    (3) How can a customer determine that the supplier knows what he is doing, and that he is likely to deliver what is desired?, and

    (4) How can both the supplier and customer assess and minimize the risks?

These questions are important because the supplier of a product that fails in the field experiences a loss of customer confidence and subsequently a loss of business.  Similarly, the customer of a product that fails will experience a loss of functionality which could result in decreased business, safety and customer satisfaction.
 

Complete article is available to CALCE Consortium Members.

[Home Page] [Articles Page]