Track 2 Tutorial 3
3:30 to 5:00 p.m. Thursday June 19, 2008

Using the Weibull Function to Validate Product Life

Many products must pass a reliability demonstration test to validate that they meet the life requirement of their customers. A supplier must show that a very large percentage of the product population will function properly for a given period of time under severe, specified conditions. If a lab test is used, questions quickly arise regarding how to properly analyze a skewed failure distribution and how to handle a data set that has some non failed items (suspensions). What should one do with several failure modes? What if the test applies a mix of loads over time? When production tools are moved to a new plant, is it necessary to validate that the new plant makes the same or equivalent product? This tutorial discusses how the Weibull function and associated Weibull plots and contour plots can be effective tools to answer these questions. Contour plots provide an easily understood graphical method to identify either sizeable differences or negligible differences.

Key Words: Weibull Analysis, Life/Failure Distributions, Bp Percentile, Target Life, Timeline Plots, Failed and Suspended Items, Weibull Probability Plots, Contour Plots, Confidence Bounds