This document was prepared with the aim of bringing up to date the disciplines associate with reliability prediction and analysis, and so overcome some of the problems associated with the techniques as performed over the last 20 years or so.

The opportunity has been taken to review those aspects of conventional reliability engineering and to provide a guide that can be used in a simple manner by those smaller companies that are required to provide larger customer organisations with reliability estimates and analyses for their equipment. It is also hoped that the techniques described herein will be of value to small- and medium-sized business enterprises when planning their own activities with respect to reliability. Reliable products enhance market position and protect company reputations.

The issue of this document has been timed to coincide with the spread of a new wave of thoughts and processes related to reliability engineering spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. It aims to support this wave of enthusiasm and to introduce a new and user friendly form of reliability prediction.

Supported by all Member Companies, this document updates an earlier UK Ministry of Defence document, RPM 80, which has been used worldwide.

The issue of this document is made even more important by the demise of many of the more traditional reliability prediction standards worldwide following the move towards commercial procurement of components and systems. There remains a need for companies to compete with one another in a reliability sense. Use of the reliability prediction and analysis techniques described in this document will allow them to compete from a common standpoint.