A Bayes approach to automotive components reliability testing and development

Due to cost and time limitation, reliability demonstration tests on new products often are carried out on a small number of copies so that, if the classical approach is used, a very low level of confidence in reliability estimation results in. In this paper, a Bayes procedure is proposed for making inference on the reliability of a new upgraded version of a mechanical component, by using both failure data relative to a previous version of the component and prior information on the effectiveness of design modifications introduced in the new version. The proposed procedure is then applied to a case study and its feasibility in supporting reliability estimation is illustrated.