Editorial: Customer demands for quality and reliability for critical applications

✍ Scribed by Edward B. Hakim

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 11 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0748-8017
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1638(199907/08)15:4<251::aid-qre273>3.0.co;2-i

✦ Synopsis

EDITORIAL CUSTOMER DEMANDS FOR QUALITY AND RELIABILITY FOR CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

We have always been led to believe that high quality and reliability were synonymous with the military. Quality, qualification, reliability, test procedures, product assurance, reliability prediction, accelerated testing and so on were topics developed and followed to the letter of the law. These requirements particularly by the US DOD and the UK MOD, were documented in specifications, standards and handbooks. These establishments could impose these rigorous conditions, since the military was the major customer of microelectronics devices in the early 1970s. High-volume, low-cost plasticencapsulated devices for the commercial markets soon relegated hermetic packages to less then 1% of the market. These new microelectronics buyers had to develop low-cost methodologies to assure customer satisfaction. The papers contained in this special issue describe some of the state-of-the-art approaches addressing customer satisfaction.

The first paper by Condra, Bosco, Deppe, Gullo, Treacy and Wilkinson addresses the issues of reliability assessment of a truly critical application, the commercial airline industry. The approach developed by representatives from the aircraft developer, the electronics suppliers and the governmental regulators is the Reliability Assessment Program (RAP). The paper reviews RAP and some of its concepts, which are now accepted approaches, diverging significantly from past requirements.

The second paper by Jackson, Sandborn, Pecht, Hemens-Davis and Audette presents an approach to electronic parts selection and management which involves assessment of new technologies applications by a risk-informed methodology. This approach differs significantly from the 'old way' of doing business. A