Estimating Reliability and predicting warranty of an electronic device with multiple failure modes.

Abstract

This research considers electronic devices which are prone to fail after some period of time. Electronic devices usually can have more than one cause of failure. In practice, it is important to differentiate between these and find the impact of different causes of failure. Differentiating between failure modes is required for improving reliability, for determining the cause of failure and to set warranty for the device. The data set consists of failure records of an electronic device. Due to confidentiality of the data neither the device name nor the description of the failure modes can be divulged. The time variable is measured in terms of cycles to failure. Here, the electronic device has several modes of failure which are categorized into three primary modes of failure with the less occurring failure modes being categorized as “other” failure mode. The primary objective of this study is to illustrate the use of reliability analysis for improving the reliability of an electronic device. In the analysis the device was considered as a series system in which the device fails when any one of the failure modes occur. Selected parametric models for each failure mode were combined to determine the reliability of the electronic device. The methods illustrated here have wide applicability. These can be applied to any electronic device such as computers, mobile phones, calculators etc., to electrical devices such as light bulbs, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc. to mechanical devices such as motor vehicles, air crafts and, military equipment etc.