IMPROVING RELIABILITY BY ADDRESSING EARLY FAILURES: LEVERAGING THE USE OF MODERN QUALITY TOOLS

摘要

While some studies show that critical aspects of reliability like durability have improved during the last couple of decades, many industrial companies still indicate that the problem of early product failures continues to plague them. Moreover, regular surveys of early problems (like those in Consumer Reports) indicate that early product failures are particularly problematic for American automakers. This paper considers a few modern quality tools that can be leveraged to significantly address the problem of early product failures and thereby improve the overall reliability of the product.