How do you calculate the reliability of your products

Reliability is a critical factor in product development and lifecycle management, especially for energy-related products (ErPs). Ensuring a high level of reliability can significantly reduce environmental impact, reduce production costs, and increase customer satisfaction. This blog provides a comprehensive overview of how to calculate the reliability of your products using the guidelines outlined in EN 45552:2020.

Understanding reliability

Reliability is defined as the probability that a product will perform its intended function under specified conditions for a certain period of time without failure. Unlike durability, which deals with the total expected life of a product, reliability focuses on the likelihood of error-free operation within a given time frame.

Important Concepts

• reliability: The probability that a product will work as intended under defined conditions without experiencing failure.
• Failure Modes: The specific ways in which a product cannot perform its intended function.
• Failure mechanisms: The underlying causes of failures, such as material fatigue or environmental stresses.
• Failure Points: The specific parts or components of the product that are likely to experience failures.

Reliability Assessment Framework

The reliability assessment involves several important steps, which are described in detail below:

1.

First, you clearly define the product or group of products, including its primary, secondary, and tertiary functions. This functional analysis helps to identify all critical components and systems within the product that need to be evaluated for reliability.

2.

Next, determine the environmental and operating conditions in which the product will operate. These conditions include factors such as temperature, humidity, mechanical stress and electrical loads. Understanding these conditions is crucial for simulating real-world scenarios in reliability testing.

3. Additional information

Gather additional information from various sources, such as field data, vendor restrictions, regulations, stress analysis, and failure mode and impact analysis (FMEA). This data helps to build a comprehensive picture of the potential reliability issues and the likely failure mechanisms.

4.

Perform a reliability analysis by linking functions to failure modes, failure points, and failure mechanisms. This involves performing an FMEA or similar analysis to identify and evaluate the most likely failures. The analysis should result in a list of failure sites and mechanisms, ranked by their probability.

5. Selection and Application of Reliability Assessment Methods

Select appropriate methods to evaluate the reliability of the product. These methods may include:

• Physical testing: Testing the product under controlled conditions to observe its performance and identify points of failure.
• Accelerated Endurance Testing (ALT): Expose the product to increased loads to induce failures faster than under normal conditions. This helps to estimate the lifespan and failure rates of the product in less time.
• Statistical analyses: Use statistical models to analyze test data and predict the reliability of the product.

6.

Finally, document the entire evaluation process, including input data, assumptions, analysis methods, and results. This documentation is essential to ensure transparency and provide a basis for future reliability improvements.

Example: Reliability rating of an electronic device

Let's consider an example of evaluating the reliability of an electronic control unit in a car:

1. define product: The electronic control unit is defined as a critical component responsible for controlling the car's engine power.
2. Environmental and operating conditions: The device should be operated in a temperature range of -20°C to 85°C and should be exposed to vibrations and moisture.
3. Additional information: Field data shows that previous versions of the device had a 10% failure rate due to component fatigue within three years.
4. Perform reliability analysis: An FMEA identifies the main failure modes, such as solder joint fatigue and capacitor failure. These are evaluated according to their probability.
5. Selection and application of reliability assessment methods: Accelerated endurance tests are performed at elevated temperatures to induce failures quickly. Statistical analysis of the test data predicts a mean time to failure (MTTF) of 5 years under normal operating conditions.
6. Evaluation documentation: The results, including failure modes, test conditions, and predicted MTTF, are documented for future reference and improvements.

For more detailed guidance, see the full text of EN 45552:2020 and related standards such as EN 45554:2020 for repair, reuse and upgrade assessments and EN 62308 for reliability assessment methods.

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