Citation (IEEE): D. Clausing, “Reliability,” Course reading. See also D. Clausing, Total Quality Development. New York, NY, USA: ASME Press, 1994.
What it argues
Clausing frames reliability as failure-mode avoidance, defining a failure mode as “any customer-perceived deviation from the ideal function of the product” [1]. Failure modes can be soft (degraded performance) or hard (the function stops). He argues that failures have two causes, lack of robustness and mistakes, and that reliability is best understood as quality extended over the product’s life. The reliability work done during development should therefore focus on making designs robust to noise and on systematically preventing mistakes.
Ideas it feeds
[1]
D. Clausing, “Reliability.” Course reading.