There is an increasing need for improved methods of determining the reliability and predicting the lifetime of machines and production systems more accurately. The paper deals with the role of tribology in the large and complex scope of reliability engineering and the different tribology-related methods to improve reliability, such as reliability design, component lifetime, condition monitoring and diagnostics. To be of value for reliability estimations, the tribological data should be expressed in terms of endurance life and probability of failure. Tribological effects are today expressed on different geometrical scales, all the way from nanotribology even up to teratribology. However, the required task of scaling-up of our knowledge from nano- and microtribology level will perhaps need other, more non-linear approaches than the strict reductionism to which we are accustomed.
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