Quality and reliability research into the next century

The paper examines the research needed to advance the science of Q&R and in particular looks at that required to overcome the present crisis in reliability prediction and assessment. Areas requiring special attention are methods for the objective grading of product and organizational quality, research into human error causes and prevention, better modelling of reliability for prediction purposes, the discovery and use of unreliability diagnostic parameters, and better understanding and application of accelerated testing. Accelerated testing, screening and reliability prediction should all be more failure-mode-specific than they are currently. Reliability physics should pay increased attention to the precise effect material and geometric defects have on device life.