http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1909289343

Prediction of Human Related Field Failures in Electronic Equipment

The purpose of the study was to investigate (1) the frequency and impact of human initiated and human related equipment failures on operational reliability; (2) the factors responsible for the occurrence of these failures; (3) the design characteristics and equipment components to which these failures are related; (4) methods of combining human performance data with reliability predictive techniques. Equipment failure reports from the Autopilot and TFR systems for the F-111 aircraft, the AGERD avionics test stations for the F-111, the FSS-7 ground based radar system and the BUIC III computer facility were investigated. Equipment failures which required part replacement accounted for 53 percent of the total failure reports with alignment and adjustment (21 percent), no defects (18 percent) and HIF - Human Induced Failure (8 percent). This distribution was calculated after connector and module 'reseating' were extracted (11 percent of the total). The distribution within these mutually exclusive (by data reduction design) categories varied significantly between specific functional equipment groupings; for example, part replacement ranged from 18 percent to 90 percent depending upon the equipment group. The factors affecting the distribution included connector usage, mechanical configuration, characteristics of signal parameters, alignment/adjustment controls and the testing mechanisms. (Author).

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