A Map for Assurance of Reliability and Safety of Industrial Products

Abstract

An overall map of and approaches to the assurance of reliability and safety for industrial products are proposed. The front-line activities of workers and staff in R & D, design, production, etc. play important roles in assuring the reliability and safety of industrial products. These activities require the support of the organization's management and culture, of the quality assurance system, and of society at large. The front-line activities for assuring reliability and safety include ① immediate resolution of problems,② prevention of problem recurrence, and ③ prevention of problems in new products. Crisis management is important for ① the plan-do-check-act cycle based on effective standardization is important for ②, and prevention by prediction using both deductive and inductive approaches is important for ③. Deductive approaches focus on function, functional mechanism, usage and environmental stresses, failure mechanism, and failure modes, and inductive approaches focus on reliability testing and failure analysis.