System Signatures and their Applications in Engineering Reliability (repost)

In building reliability into a system, engineers must address a number of practical needs that will enable them to quantify and compare reliability in engineered systems. (1) One is to be able to compare the reliability of one system to another system. (2) Another practical need is to compare alternate system designs for the purpose of engineering a particular optimal system. The practical, standardized, technical tool for characterizing reliability in systems is system signatures which was created in 1985 and since has developed into a powerful tool for qualifying reliability.