Chapter 2. Reliability, Durability, and Robustness

Hard failures are easy to detect since things stop working. Soft failures are more the result of performance expectations not being satisfied. Satisfactory performance is often subjective, with variations in judgment among customers. To understand these types of failures better, we introduce the concepts of quality loss and robustness. A concise summary can help readers understand how failures can occur and the tools that are available to prevent hard failures and reduce performance variations.

When purchasing a product, most consumers don’t have well-defined or precise expectations for performance and reliability. We can imagine them saying:

“It must not break.”“It has to be there when I need ...

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