Volume 03 Part 3 - Case Studies

Foreword to the 1st edition

Volume 3 Part 3 was created to facilitate a practice-oriented introduction to the topic of reliability engineering and serves as a supplement to Volume 3 Part 1 and Volume 3 Part 2. Based on key questions and a consistent notional example (wheel bearing), it provides a clear introduction to the work on reliability in the product life cycle of the automotive and supplier industry. Additional, purely notional special examples enable a deeper examination of the topic. All the examples shown in this volume are used purely to illustrate the methods and make no claim to universal validity.

An important motivation for the creation of this volume was to highlight the interconnections and interdependencies of key methods, data and information flows across different phases of the reliability work in the product life cycle. In this way, information from every phase (concept, development, production and use phase) is made usable in terms of added value for all other phases in the product life cycle.

The aim is to illustrate the practical application, interaction and understanding of the standard methods in the reliability control loop from the OEM and supplier point of view. In all the notional case examples, attention was paid to both reproducibility and comprehensibility of the calculation methods and also to the relevant assumptions made for application of the methods. The user thus obtains a consistent system relating to processes and methods of reliability work. The data used were generated by means of simulations using parameters close to reality.

In this volume, the focus is placed on the technical aspects of the reliability analysis and consideration of the commercial aspects is deliberately omitted.