Practical Reliability Engineering, 5th Edition

17

Reliability Management

17.1 Corporate Policy for Reliability

A really effective reliability function can exist only in an organization where the achievement of high reliability is recognized as part of the corporate strategy and is given top management attention. If these conditions are not fulfilled, and if it receives only lip service, reliability effort will be cut back whenever cost or time pressures arise. Reliability staff will suffer low morale and will not be accepted as part of project teams. Therefore, quality and reliability awareness and direction must start at the top and must permeate all functions and levels where reliability can be affected.

Several factors of modern industrial business make such high level awareness essential. The high costs of repairs under warranty, and of those borne by the user, even for relatively simple items such as domestic electronic and electrical equipment, make reliability a high value property. Other less easily quantifiable effects of reliability, such as customer goodwill and product reputation, and the relative reliability of competing products, are also important in determining market penetration and retention.

17.2 Integrated Reliability Programmes

The reliability effort should always be treated as an integral part of the product development and not as a parallel activity unresponsive to the rest of the development programme. This is the major justification for placing responsibility for reliability with the project manager. ...