For several years I have toyed with the idea of putting together a selection of the writings that I have perpetrated over many years, and making them available to be inflicted on posterity. Now at last I can do it, because:

1. I am teetering on the brink of retirement, so I probably won’t be writing much more of that kind of stuff, and
   
   
2. Internet-based publishing makes such vanity affordable.
   

So here they are. They include editorials and book reviews that appeared in Quality and Reliability Engineering International (QREI), published papers and articles and letters, and other pieces. Many of them have been absorbed into my books, and some arguments are repeated, so readers are warned that they might have read them before. The last part consists of unconnected, mainly unpublished essays and miscellanea. No one has to read it.

I would like to thank the friendly folk at John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, for permission to use the material that originally appeared in QREI, and for their unfailing helpfulness and friendship; also the other Editors (Finn Jensen, the late Kam Wong and Hank Malec, and Douglas Montgomery) and members of the Editorial Board, who all made my association with the journal so interesting and enjoyable.

Finally, I must thank and pay tribute to the many friends that I have made over the years that I have been trying to make some little contribution to the quality, reliability and safety of the systems and products that engineers create, and to some wider aspects of management and society. Looking back at what I have written, and at the world today, I reckon that I have been quite comprehensively ignored. In all humility, however, I am sure of one thing: within their fields my writing presents the correct wisdom that should govern the ways that the world should be managed. I can say “in all humility” because I know that they reflect the thinking of the great majority of the caring, thoughtful, intelligent people I am privileged to have met, the wise authors I have read, and Dilbert. I claim no unique insights or wisdom.

Stupidity remains embedded in much human endeavour. However, I hope that the next time you drive your car, use your mobile phone, wave to the International Space Station or interface with any other engineering creation and it does not break, you will think that maybe I helped a little. I am sorry that I could not help with the big things, but then who can?

Now I will get back to the saga of Walter Minion.

Patrick O’Connor

March 2005

CONTENTS

PART 1: MY ENGINEERING LIFE

PART 2: QREI EDITORIALS

Predicting the Unpredictable (1985)
Who Needs Q&R Standards? (1986)
Writings on Q&R: the Gold Effect (1987)
Quality and Perestroika (1988)
Arrhenius and Electronics Reliability (1989)
International Standards on Q&R (1990)
Nature, Strategy, Tactics and Quality (1991)
Standards (1991)
Deming and Baldrige (1991)
Teaching Quality (1992)
The Game of Engineering (1993)
Reliability Prediction Revisited (1993)
Quality, Reliability and Re-Engineering (1994)
Teaching Quality and Reliability (1994)
Which Way for Q&R Standards? (1995)
Is Engineering Normal? (1996?)
Teaching Testing (1997)
Q&R and The Dilbert Principle (1997)
Professional Associations for Q&R Engineering (1998?)
A Parting Message (1999)

PART 3: ARTICLES ON QUALITY, RELIABILITY AND SAFETY 44

The Role of Government in Defence Equipment Reliability
Reliability: Your Best Investment
Greed vs. Fear: The Search for Reliability
Effectiveness of Formal Reliability Programs
Reliability Prediction: Help or Hoax?
US MIL HDBK 217; Reliability Prediction for Electronics
Reliability Prediction Using Alternative Methods
ISO9000: Help or Hoax?
Quality and Reliability: Illusions and Realities
Quantifying Uncertainty in Reliability and Safety Studies
Achieving World Class Quality and Reliability:Science or Art?
Standards in Reliability and Safety Engineering
Safe and Reliable Railways: What Can We Learn from Competing Transport Industries?
Managing Safety at a Distance? Some Thoughts Relevant to Managing Safety on the Railways
System Safety and ISO/IEC61508
Reliability Past, Present And Future

PART 4: BOOK REVIEWS

Biography
Juran: A Lifetime of Influence, John Butman

Management
How to Make Japanese Management Methods Work in the West, K. Murata
Re-engineering the Corporation: a Manifesto for Business Revolution, Michael Hammer and James Champy

Quality and Reliability Management
Out of the Crisis, W. E. Deming
Guide to Quality Control, K. Ishikawa
Introduction to Quality Control, K. Ishikawa
Leadership for Quality, J.M. Juran
Handbook of Quality Tools: the Japanese Approach, K. Ozeki and T. Asaka
The New Shop Floor Management: Empowering People for Continuous Improvement, Kiyoshi Suzaki
Building Total Quality, Tito Conti
Achieve Total Quality, D. Hutchins
In Pursuit of Quality. D. Hutchins
The New Economics, W. E. Deming
Total Quality Development: a Step-by-Step Guide to World Class Concurrent Engineering, Don Clausing
Quality: from Customer Needs to Customer Satisfaction, Bo Bergman and Bengt Klefsjo
The Human Dimension of Quality, Brian Thomas
What Every Manager Should Know about Quality,T. Pyzdek
Gemba Kaizen, Masaaki Imai
Assurance Technologies: Principles and Practices, D.G. Raheja
Software Reliability Engineering, J. Musa

Statistical Methods
Understanding Statistical Process Control, D. J. Wheeler and D. S. Chambers
Introduction to Statistical Quality Control (2nd ed.), D. C. Montgomery
Statistical Methods for Testing, Development and Manufacturing, F.W. Breyfogle III
Six Sigma: the Pragmatic Approach, Kjell Magnusson, Dag Kroslid and Bo Bergman

Standards and Audits
Management Audits (3rd Ed.), Allan J. Sayle
Organizational Self-Assessment, Tito Conti
Standards and Certification in Europe, Brian Rothery

Engineering
Mechanical Reliability and Design, A.D.S. Carter
Influence of Temperature on Microelectronics and System Reliability, Pradeep Lall, Michael G. Pecht and
Edward B. Hakim
Digital Test Engineering, J. Max Cortner
ATE: Automatic Test Equipment, Allan C. Stover
Design to Test (2nd ed.), Jon Turino
The Economics of Automatic Testing (2nd. ed), Brendan Davis
Testing in Software Development, M. A. Ould and C. Unwin (eds)
The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis, R. Jain

PART 5: OTHER EFFUSIONS

Is Scientific Management Dead?
Is Technology the Problem?
Education: Back to the Basics
Stupidity
Statistics of Infant Death
Deadly Rays?
Music
Mini Sagas
Poems
Words