Exploratory data analysis approaches to reliability: some new directions

Recent research on developing a structural approach to analysis of reliability data has been published in Walls and Bendell 1985; Thompson 1988; Ansell and Phillips 1990; Bastos Martini et al. 1990, 1991; The EuReDatA Benchmark exercise (1990) and McCollin 1993; Lindqvist 1998 and Bunea, Cooke and Lindqvist 2002. This paper brings together these approaches and introduces some other aspects of reliability analysis i.e. data manipulation prior to analysis and analysis of multivariate and covariate structures. A methodology is proposed which incorporates this structure to aid the determination of the solution to root causes of problems. The methodology uses statistical hypothesis testing principles and well-known quality improvement and reliability techniques incorporated into a Shewhart PDSA cycle. Uses of its possible application are discussed within design inception (specification for reliability and feed forward of operations data); engineering judgment and the safety case; and plant maintenance.