The Reliability Engineering Glossary
Reliability engineering and related fields use a vocabulary unique to our field of endeavor. For example, the term ‘reliability’ has the meaning of ‘trustworthy’ in everyday English use. For us, ‘reliability’ has a precise engineering definition.
Glossary description and plans
This glossary is meant to help us learn the language of reliability engineering. The category of ‘Terms’ is like a dictionary, including terms and their definitions as used by engineers. The category of ‘Methods’ is a listing of the techniques, tools, approaches, or concepts that may be found within a reliability plan. In the near future, we expect to expand the ‘Methods’ pages to include guidelines on use or application, examples, and additional references.
We also plan to expand the glossary to include formulas and failure mechanisms. Please let us know if there is another list of terms that should be added if you do not find a term that should be included or if you would like to recommend a change to an existing entry.
Method Categories
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- Intrinsic failure mechanismA failure caused by the natural deterioration of materials or by the fabrication or assembly material combination that is within specification. The natural and expected material deterioration processed per specification. Read More
- Inventory, activeThe group of items assigned to an operational status. Read More
- Inventory, inactiveThe group of items being held in reserve for possible future assignments to an operational status. Read More
- Inventory turnsThe number of times inventory is consumed in a given period. Read More
- Ionizing RadiationRadiation that converts impacted items wholly or partly into ions (electrically charged particles). The particulate radiation component includes all subatomic particles, such as protons, neutrons, electrons, atomic nuclei stripped of orbital electrons, mesons, etc. Read More
- Irradiance (Ee)The density of radiant flux incident on a surface. Read More
- Ishikawa diagramA problem-solving tool using a graphical arrangement of various process elements to analyze sources of variation or failure cause. Also known as a fishbone diagram or cause and effect diagram. Read More
- IsolationDetermining the location of a failure to the extent possible. Read More
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- Key performance indicators (KPI)Also known as KPIs, these are measures of business processes or project characteristics. They provide a monitoring function to evaluate the success of an organization, process, procedure, supplier, etc. Managers often create and use KPIs for a specific project, then retired when the project(...) Read More
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- Layer of protection analysis (LOPA)A technique used to determine the effectiveness of safeguards and safety-instrumented functions for providing risk reduction as protection from hazards identified for a given process. The identified hazards can be as a result of an earlier HAZOP. Read More
- Lessons-learned systemA compilation of an organization’s experiences that should be actively taken into account in future endeavors. It provides a method to avoid past mistakes or reinforce the use of best practices. Read More
- Level of repair analysis (LORA)The analytical method used to determine when an item should be repaired, replaced, or retired based on cost and operational requirements. LORA provides a strategy and supporting information useful when establishing a maintenance program for the analyzed system. Read More
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- Maintenance planningThe process of identifying what work needs to be done with what specific materials, tools, equipment, and documentation. The process also addresses why a specific maintenance approach is taken, while detailing how to accomplish the work. It provides critical information in anticipation of(...) Read More
- Maintenance schedulingThe process of determining when to accomplish specific maintenance tasks, giving detailed information on who will perform what maintenance and when. Read More
- Maintenance storeroom managementThe coordinated effort to acquire, house, and maintain parts, tools, and materials necessary for maintenance tasks. Such management facilitates having available the items for kitting in an efficient manner. Read More
- Maintenance task analysis (MTA)The identification of the steps, spares, materials, tools, equipment, skill level, and facility requirement for a given repair task. MTA assists in understanding the logistics support necessary to execute the repair. Read More
- Markov chain modelingAn analysis technique based on the idea that the system or components within a system may have one or two states (functional or failed). The modeling includes the probability of failure and repair along with the relationship between items and provides a method to model complex repairable systems. Read More
- Measurement system analysis (MSA)An experimental and mathematical method of determining the amount of variation that exists within a measurement process. Read More
- Metric monitoring & tracking systemA system to identify and establish the process to gather and report data required to assess progress or attainment of objectives such as the reliability goal, KPIs, etc. For each objective specified for a project or program, monitoring and tracking are performed on all specific measurables. Read More
- Monte Carlo reliability modelingA mathematical technique that generates random variables (time-to-failure distribution when modeling the reliability of a system) for modeling risk or uncertainty of a system. The approach incorporates all available information and relationships including continuous, discrete, and categorical(...) Read More
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