8. Assessing Product Reliability
8.1. Introduction

8.1.2.

What are the basic terms and models used for reliability evaluation?

Reliability methods and terminology began with 19th century insurance companies

Reliability theory developed apart from the mainstream of probability and statistics, and was used primarily as a tool to help nineteenth century maritime and life insurance companies compute profitable rates to charge their customers. Even today, the terms "failure rate" and "hazard rate" are often used interchangeably. 

The following sections will define some of the concepts, terms, and models we need to describe, estimate and predict reliability.