Assess Your Lifetime Model

摘要

Analysis of product lifetime data typically calls for estimating product reliability-together with an associated statistical confidence interval-after a specified lifetime. For product lifetimes that do not exceed the longest time to failure in the given data, such estimates and intervals can be calculated without making any assumption about the statistical lifetime distribution, using so-called "nonparametric" methods.Reliability estimates, however, are frequently desired for lifetimes that exceed-sometimes by far-the longest observed time to failure. For example, you might wish to estimate five-year reliability from (up to) two-year product lifetime data. This requires you to assume an appropriate lifetime distribution. But what distribution should you select and how can you assess the wisdom of your choice?