Predicting Customer Integration Fallout Based on Producer´s Final Quality Audit

Quality and reliability are two correlated aspects of a product´s inherent characteristics. In the modern industry, they are extremely important for the product and business to survive in the global marketplace. The ability to predict the outgoing quality and reliability is a critical factor for a successful quality assurance program. This paper presents a reliability-based Bayesian approach for predicting the computer system integration fallout (quality) due to hard disk drive (HDD) failure based on HDD producer´s Final Quality Audit (FQA) results. A numerical example utilizing actual data is given to illustrate the Bayesian prediction of average outgoing quality (AOQ) based on producer´s FQA test data and its comparison against the actual verified rejection rate at customer system integration line. The prediction results track the actual data reasonably well. This approach extends the understanding and quantification of the traditional rectifying inspection concept to a broader perspective.