ABSTRACT
Commercial products have always been subjected to some kind of scrutiny before sale to insure that they will have a high probability of meeting or exceeding the manufacturer's stated lifetime. Without this kind of analysis, products may suffer from infant mortality failures (samples which fail earlier in life than the normal population) or from premature wearout (normal but unintended failure). Testing products helps manufacturers understand the weaknesses in their products to either adjust the operating specifications or the stated lifetime to ensure that the product would meet the stated specifications, and helps them improve the product by eliminating the causes of early failure.
