Quality & Reliability (RAMS) Assurance During the Production Phase

Reliability (RAMS) assurance has to be continued during the production phase, coordinated with other quality assurance activities. In particular, for monitoring and controlling production processes, item configuration, in-process and final tests, screening procedures, and collection, analysis and correction of defects and failures. The last measure yields to a learning process whose purpose is to optimize the quality of manufacture, taking into account cost and time schedule limitations. This chapter introduces some basic aspects of quality and reliability (RAMS) assurance during production, discusses test and screening procedures for electronic components and assemblies, introduces the concept of cost optimization related to a test strategy and develops it for a cost optimized test and screening strategy at the incoming inspection. For greater details one may refer to [7.1 - 7.5, 8.1 - 8.14] for qualification and monitoring of production processes, as well as to [8.21 - 8.35] for test and screening aspects. Models for reliability growth are discussed in Section 7.7.