Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1974. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-96).

The intent of this thesis is to investigate, develop, and apply techniques to determine the reliability and maintainability of populations of items. These techniques are to be used in determining the total life-time operating costs of the populations so that those items with the lowest life-time costs can be bought. To do this, the author has explored current techniques for determining compliance to some minimum required Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) in what is referred to as a Phase I testing. After the requirements of Phase I testing have been met, testing may be continued at the option of the contractor and confidence limits constructed about the Bid MTBF to determine compliance to it. Methods by which incentives or penalties may be rewarded or assessed to contractor as a result of the Phase II testing are included. The author next investigated techniques which can be used to determine the maintainability parameters and the accuracy of these parameters. Finally, since the reliability techniques explored were all based on the exponential distribution, techniques were included to prove if the failure rate was exponential. If not, discussions were incorporated on how to handle this situation. (85 pages)