Hi,

I have been looking around the internet for information on testing the reliability of a particular part of a product and I have become overwhelmed by the amount of information out there.

The scenario I have is that I would like to calculate a figure for the reliability of a particular part of a product. There are 40 of this particular product in the field and I can test a small sample, e.g. 4-6, to obtain test data to use in the calculation of a reliability figure for the 40.

This raises some questions:

Given the small number of fielded units I don't think I can use normal statistical analysis because the population is too small. If that is the case how do I work out what a "significant" number of tests is to be confident in the reliability figure for the whole population?

I realise that the whole area of reliability engineering is vast so perhaps there are some useful books and websites that you could point me in the direction of?

Kind Regards,

Alan