It is over ten years since the last major revision and update to my book. Inevitably in that time there have been developments in engineering technology and in reliability methods. In this new edition I have tried to include all of the important changes that affect reliability engineering and management today. In keeping with the original aims of the book, I have emphasised those with practical implications.
The main changes and additions include:
Some of the new material is adapted from my book “Test Engineering”, with permission from the publisher.
The questions and the answers manual (available separately from the publisher) have been augmented to cover the new material.
An Internet homepage has been created for the book, at www.pat-oconnor.co.uk/practicalreliability.htm. The homepage includes listings of suppliers of reliability engineering related services and software.
I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. S.K. Yang for his kind assistance with the description of the Petri net method, Dr. Gregg Hobbs for his teaching and help on HALT/HASS testing, Prof. Jörgen Möltoft for helping with the description of the M(t) method, and Jim McLinn for providing additional material, questions and answers on aspects of accelerated testing and data analysis. I also thank all who have provided suggestions and pointed out errors. Last but certainly not least I thank my wife, Ina, again.
PATRICK O'CONNOR
2001