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the first phases of a product's development, the estimate of the product's final
reliability is called the "reliability goal." However, the first prototypes
produced will almost certainly contain design, manufacturing and/or engineering
deficiencies that prevent the product from reaching that goal. In order to identify and
correct these deficiencies, prototypes are usually subjected to a rigorous testing program
and appropriate corrective actions are implemented to improve the design. This structured
process of finding reliability problems and monitoring the increase of the product's
reliability through successive phases is called "reliability growth."
This tutorial addresses the principles of reliability
growth testing and data analysis, including techniques to analyze data from time-based
tests (where corrective actions may be implemented during the test, after the test and/or
not at all) and from various types of one-shot success/failure tests.
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