ReliaSoft's Reliability HotWire: Issue 34

In this issue:

Issue 34, December 2003

	Hot Topics
	Reliability Basics
	Tool Tips
	Latest Software Updates
	Hot News
	Contribute to HotWire

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Happy Holidays!

From all of us at ReliaSoft... we wish you a joyous holiday season and a new year of peace and happiness.

Hot Topics

Using Accelerated Life Testing Analysis to Characterize "Shelf Life"
In this case study, we take a look at how ReliaSoft's ALTA software can be utilized to characterize the "shelf life" of certain chemicals. Most life data or accelerated testing analyses have time as the dependent variable and other inputs as stress factors. However, in this case, time will be considered to be the stress factor, while the dependent variable is a particular characteristic of the chemical, such as concentration. Through this type of analysis, we can determine the probability that the chemical's characteristic will be outside of an acceptable range of values based on test readings taken at various time intervals.

To read more, see http://www.reliasoft.com/alta/a6ex6/index.htm

Reliability Basics

What Are Confidence Bounds?
One of the most confusing concepts to a novice reliability engineer is estimating the precision of an estimate. This is an important concept in the field of reliability engineering, leading to the use of confidence intervals. This subject can be confusing, as confidence is "the probability of a probability." However, the use of confidence in reliability is becoming more common as more organizations include confidence bounds in their reliability requirements. In this article, we will briefly present the concept in relatively simple terms and based on common sense.

Tool Tips

Is there a quick way to assign stress profiles to data points in ALTA 6 PRO?

What do the parameters B and C represent in ALTA?

Latest Software Updates

New service releases are now available for BlockSim (SR 6.2.2), Xfmea (SR 1.0.7) and MPC (3.0.10). To determine the compile revision of the application on your computer, select About from the Help menu.

Application	Date Created	Version
BlockSim
BlockSim	12/9/03	6.2.2
BlockSim Update	12/9/03	SR 6.2.2
MPC
MPC	12/2/03	3.0.10
MPC Update	N/A	SR 3.0.10
Xfmea
Xfmea	12/2/03	1.0.7
Xfmea Update	N/A	SR 1.0.7

Hot News

Closed for the Winter Holidays - ReliaSoft's U.S. Corporate Headquarters will be closed for the Winter Holidays from December 25, 2003 - January 2, 2004. We wish you all a happy holiday season!

RGA Software Update - ReliaSoft's newest reliability growth software is still under development. The developers are addressing the final details and are excited for you to see the new functionality. The anticipated release date is January 2004. For information on RGA 6 features and pricing, see http://RGA.ReliaSoft.com/.

Public Reliability Discussion Forums - The resources on weibull.com include ReliaSoft's Discussion Forums, which are open to the public for the discussion of reliability engineering and related issues, ReliaSoft's products/services and employment opportunities in related fields. These free forums are intended to provide an opportunity for communication within the reliability community and do not require a password. Participation within this virtual community starts at http://www.reliasoft.org/discus/.

50th Anniversary of the Reliability & Maintainability Symposium - ReliaSoft will be present to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of RAMS. This Reliability and Maintainability Symposium will be held at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Current state-of-the-art methods for achieving R&M objectives, plus historical perspectives on the last 50 years of R&M, will be presented January 26 - 29, 2004. For more information and an advanced program, see http://www.rams.org.

Applied Reliability Symposium (ARS) Event Details - The event details for the 1st annual Applied Reliability Symposium have expanded! You can now navigate the ARS program matrix by title, presenter or session ID. Presentation overviews are also available. To learn more, please visit the symposium Web site at http://www.ARSymposium.org.

Calendar of Public Events:

February

Master the Subject, Master the Tools Training Seminar (MSMT) - Life data analysis, accelerated life data analysis and system analysis: February 23 - 27, 2004 in Tucson, AZ. For more information, see http://Seminars.ReliaSoft.com/master.htm.

Contribute to HotWire

Contributions Welcomed
As always, your feedback and contributions are appreciated. ReliaSoft is able to provide the most user-friendly reliability software packages and support because we listen to our customers. This applies to our newsletters and publications as well. We welcome any suggestions or contributions you may have for Reliability HotWire. If you have a topic or article that you think would be useful to the readers of Reliability HotWire, feel free to contact us. We can be reached by e-mail at HotWire@ReliaSoft.com, or by standard mail at 1450 S. Eastside Loop, Tucson, AZ 85710-6703, USA.

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