Application of Reliability Demonstration
Testing to the Product Development Life Cycle
Reliability Demonstration
Testing (RDT) is an effective process to identify and predict top
field failure modes and to predict product Annual Failure Rate %
(AFR%) during the product development cycle. An efficient RDT
process allows product development teams to be proactive during
design development rather than reactive after the product release
to costly design warranty issues in the customer field. This
presentation discusses where and how the RDT process fits within a
product development Reliability/Quality plan applied to medical
instruments developed at Cardinal Health. Five key RDT
product development cycle areas are reviewed:
- Component or Subsystem RDT process
- System Reliability Block Diagram(RBD) Model
- System Level RDT process
- Product reliability metrics and warranty/repair cost impacts
- RDT process feedback from 1st year field warranty/repair data
analysis
Key Words: Reliability
Demonstration Test (RDT), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD), Customer
Usage Model, Accelerated Life Tests, Acceleration Factor,
Reliability Test Plan
