Early supplier integration and management in ultrasound device development

Abstract

The system reliability was computed at several stages during project execution using the statistical and predictive information from system design, individual supplier's predictions, system reliability demonstration test results, prior Field reliability data for like assemblies, and tests conducted at the supplier's locations. One of the Field Reliability metric followed and tracked by Philips is MTBSE which means Mean Time Between Service Events. It is the ration of number of system days to the number of service events. The results at each stage were used to suitably update the predicted system reliability and determine required actions for the subsequent stages in order to achieve the end goal of an MTBSE equal or greater than 2.5 times that of the current products.