A Multiphase Decision Model for System Reliability Growth With Latent Failures

Reliability growth testing becomes difficult to implement as the product development cycle continues to shrink. As a result, the new design is prone to latent failures due to design immaturity and uncertain operating condition. Reliability growth planning emerged as a new methodology to drive the reliability across the product lifetime. We propose a multiphase reliability growth model that sequentially determines and implements corrective actions (CAs) against surfaced and latent failure modes. Such a holistic approach enables the manufacturer to attain the reliability goal while ensuring the product time to market. We devise a CA effectiveness function to assess the tradeoff between the failure removal rate and the required resources. Rosen´s gradient projection algorithm is used to determine the optimal resource allocation in each phase. The applicability and performance of the reliability growth model are demonstrated on a fleet of semiconductor testing equipment.