Reliability, Maintainability and Risk by David Smith

For over 30 years, Reliability, Maintainability and Risk has been recognised as a leading text for reliability and maintenance professionals. Now in its seventh edition, the book has been updated to remain the first choice for professional engineers and students. The seventh edition incorporates new material on important topics including software failure, the latest safety legislation and standards, product liability, integrity of safety-related systems, as well as delivering an up-to-date review of the latest approaches to reliability modelling, including cutsec ranking. It is also supported by new detailed case studies on reliability and risk in practice. * The leading reliability reference for over 30 years * Covers all key aspects of reliability and maintenance management in an accessible way with minimal mathematics – ideal for hands-on applications * Four new chapters covering software failure, safety legislation, safety systems and new case studies on reliability and risk in practice

‘RAMS’ clauses in contracts, and in invitations to tender, are now commonplace. In defence,
telecommunications, oil and gas, and aerospace these requirements have been specified for
many years. More recently the transport, medical and consumer industries have followed suit.
Furthermore, recent legislation in the liability and safety areas provides further motivation for
this type of assessment. Much of the activity in this area is the result of European standards and
these are described where relevant.

Software tools have been in use for RAMS’ assessments for many years and only the simplest of
calculations are performed manually. This seventh edition mentions a number of such packages.
Not only are computers of use in carrying out reliability analysis but are, themselves, the subject
of concern. The application of programmable devices in control equipment, and in particular
safety-related equipment, has widened dramatically since the mid-1980s. The reliability/quality of
the software and the ways in which it could cause failures and hazards is of considerable interest.
Chapters 17 and 22 cover this area.

After three editions Reliability, Maintainability in Perspective became Reliability, Maintainability and Risk and has now, after just 20 years, reached its 6th edition. In such a fast moving subject, the time has come, yet again, to expand and update the material particularly with the results of my recent studies into common cause failure and into the correlation between predicted and achieved field reliability. The techniques which are explained apply to both reliability and safety engineering and are also applied to optimizing maintenance strategies. The collection of techniques concerned with reliability, availability, maintainability and safety are often referred to as RAMS.