Henry A. Malec

Reliability growth from the customer perspective (telecommunications)

Reliability growth is considered from the customer/user perspective. It is emphasized that the reliability that the first customer observed with the first customer shipping can be quite different from the reliability that a customer will observe with a unit or system produced five years later. A basis for controlling reliability growth and the elapsed time of growth for the various product life cycles is provided. It allows product management to adjust for breakthroughs or setbacks per phase to assure on-time delivery of products with selected reliability levels. >

Accelerated stress testing: Design, production and field returns

During the last 5 years there has been a significant growth in the application of methods and techniques to accelerate and precipitate the failure of weak parts or to discover inadequate process steps in the design and production of electronic and mechanical products. The implementation of robust design methods and techniques such as thermal analysis, thermal scanning and HALT (highly accelerated stress test) has resulted in increasing the reliability of product and enhancing the tolerance of different and difficult operational environments (robustness). This paper will present an overall approach from a systems viewpoint for accelerated stress testing that considers the design, production and field service life cycle phases of product.

Telecommunications quality/spl mdash/a TQM viewpoint

The present issue of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications addresses the quality of telecommunications services, networks, and products. It is necessary to introduce quality both in a contextual sense, denote the present progress of quality implementation, and to indicate the challenges that lie in the future. Two of the engineering quality futurists, Tony Coppola (1991) and David Jones (1991), have scoped quality from an engineering base and telecommunications have always been driven by engineering innovation. In the present paper, an insight to quality definitions is presented along with benchmark information on telecommunications. >

Progress and trends of communications quality management

A challenge for quality management is to develop agreed upon standards for quality with clear, concise definitions. There are many technical issues that also need focus; for example, “Are quality, reliability, and performance so tightly linked that they can be treated as one interchangeable concept?” In addition, recently proposed IEC standards address both hardware and software for reliability growth along with a tri-modal model for IC reliability. Standards are also available for availability testing on a system basis with or without downtime constraints. Thus, a move away from the hardware on ly quality management philosophy will surely drive the Quality of the Systems upward as the integrated hardware, software, and human performance design considerations are developed and are standardized in the drive for quality.