Design and management of reliability and availability of power systems for telecommunications

The authors illustrate the application of quality methodologies and tools to the power systems designed and manufactured by Italtel, mainly operating as power supplies for the company´s digital switching system. Some examples describe the quality results obtained in each product life-cycle phase, from design to operation in the field, by means of: reliability and availability predictions needed to define the best system architecture and the most reliable technology; reliability growing methods, prototype environmental stress tests, and maintainability demonstration test, aimed at verifying that the target quality levels are reached in each development step; and the Quality Information System (SIQ), a tool designed to manage quality improvement during manufacturing and operation in the field