WALLACE R. BLISCHKE, holds a PhD in Statistics and serves as Professor Emeritus at Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.
D. N. PRABHAKAR MURTHY, PhD, is Professor of Engineering and Operations Management at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia. Together they have coauthored Reliability: Modeling, Prediction, and Optimization (Wiley); Warranty Cost Analysis; and Product Warranty Handbook.

Introducing a groundbreaking companion book to a bestselling reliability text
Reliability is one of the most important characteristics defining the quality of a product or system, both for the manufacturer and the purchaser. One achieves high reliability through careful monitoring of design, materials and other input, production, quality assurance efforts, ongoing maintenance, and a variety of related decisions and activities. All of these factors must be considered in determining the costs of production, purchase, and ownership of a product.
Case Studies in Reliability and Maintenance serves as a valuable addition to the current literature on the subject of reliability by bridging the gap between theory and application. Conceived during the preparation of the editors' earlier work, Reliability: Modeling, Prediction, and Optimization (Wiley, 2000), this new volume features twenty-six actual case studies written by top experts in their fields, each illustrating exactly how reliability models are applied.
A valuable companion book to Reliability: Modeling, Prediction, and Optimization, or any other textbook on the subject, the book features:
* Case studies from fields such as aerospace, automotive, mining, electronics, power plants, dikes, computer software, weapons, photocopiers, industrial furnaces, granite building cladding, chemistry, and aircraft engines
* A logical organization according to the life cycle of a product or system
* A unified format of discussion enhanced by tools, techniques, and models for drawing one's own conclusions
* Pertinent exercises for reinforcement of ideas
Of equal value to both students of reliability theory as well as professionals in industry, Case Studies in Reliability and Maintenance should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand how reliability and maintenance issues can be addressed and resolved in the real world.

Contributors.
Preface.
Introduction and Overview (Wallace R. Blischke and D. N. P. Murthy).
PART A: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON PRODUCT DESIGN.
Space Interferometer Reliability-Based Design Evaluation (Donald H. Ebbeler, et al.).
Confidence Intervals for Hardware Reliability Predictions (Chun Kin Chan and Michael Tortorella).
Allocation of Dependability Requirements in Power Plant Design (Seppo Virtanen and Per-Erik Hagmark).
PART B: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING.
The Determination of the Design Strength of Granite Used as External Cladding for Buildings (Malcolm J. Faddy, et al.).
Use of Sensitivity Analysis to Assess the Effect of Model Uncertainty in Analyzing Accelerated Life Test Data (William Q. Meeker, et al.).
Virtual Qualification of Electronic Hardware (Michael Osterman, et al.).
Development of a Moisture Soak Model for Surface-Mounted Devices (Loon Ching Tang and Soon Huat Ong).
Construction of Reliable Software in Resource-Constrained Environments (Mladen A. Vouk and Anthony T . Rivers).
Modeling and Analysis of Software System Reliability (Min Xie, et al.).
Information Fusion for Damage Prediction (Nozer D. Singpurwalla, et al.).
PART C: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON DEFECT PREDICTION AND FAILURE ANALYSIS.
Use of Truncated Regression Methods to Estimate the Shelf Life of a Product from Incomplete Historical Data (William Q. Meeker and Luis A. Escobar).
Determining Software Quality Using COQUALMO (Sunita Chulani, et al.).
Use of Extreme Values in Reliability Assessment of Composite Materials (Linda C. Wolstenholme).
Expert Judgment in the Uncertainty Analysis of Dike Ring Failure Frequency (Roger Cooke and Karen Slijkhuis).
PART D: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON MAINTENANCE AND MAINTAINABILITY.
Component Reliability, Replacement, and Cost Analysis with Incomplete Failure Data (Nicholas A. J. Hastings).
Maintainability and Maintenance--A Case Study on Mission Critical Aircraft and Engine Components (U. Dinesh Kumar and John Crocker).
Photocopier Reliability Modeling Using Evolutionary Algorithms (Michael Bulmer and John Eccleston).
Reliability Model for Underground Gas Pipelines (Roger M. Cooke, et al.).
RCM Approach to Maintaining a Nuclear Power Plant (Gilles C. Zwingelstein).
Case Experience Comparing the RCM Approach to Plant Maintenance with Modeling Approach (Xisheng Jia and Anthony H. Christer).
PART E: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON OPERATIONS OPTIMIZATION AND REENGINEERING.
Mean Residual Life and Optimal Operating Conditions for Industrial Furnace Tubes (Elsayed A. Elsayed).
Optimization of Dragline Load (Peter G. A. Townson, et al.).
Ford's Reliability Improvement Process--A Case Study on Automotive Wheel Bearings (Karl D. Majeske, et al.).
Reliability of Oil Seal for Transaxle--A Science SQC Approach at Toyota (Kakuro Amasaka and Shunji Osaki)
PART F: CASES WITH EMPHASIS ON PRODUCT WARRANTY.
Warranty Data Analysis for Assessing Product Reliability (Peter C. Sander, et al.).
Reliability and Warranty Analysis of a Motorcycle Based on Claims Data (Bermawi P. Iskandar and Wallace R. Blischke).
Index.