The Reliability and Quality Control Field from Its Inception to the Present

Starting with a brief discussion of the implications to Reliability of the parallel accelerated growth of modem technology the history of Reliability is traced through four decades. Following the early groundwork of the years before 1940 the decade of the 30´s has been described as the Standardization Decade. Here the new emphasis was on specific standards of all kinds. The following decade of the 1940´s has been described as the Quality Control Decade. This new field was developed with emphasis on process control and the uniformity of product. This was followed by the Reliability Decade during which the new emphasis was on the inherent reliability of design and the time degradation of performance. The 1960´s have ushered in a new decade and new emphasis on coordinated controls in all areas and phases of design, development and production. The new decade has been described as the Product Assurance Decade, wherein the emphasis is being placed on assurance to management and to the customer that all the important product characteristics are being optimized and that all the technical specialties involved in providing the highest value product on schedule are being integrated effectively. This new emphasis is on coordinated programs embracing all the related control specialties sometimes referred to as the Big R approach. These specialties include Reliability Engineering, Maintainability Engineering, Total Quality Assurance, Value Engineering and System Integration among others.