Cost-Optimized Burn-In Duration for Repairable Electronic Systems

A mathematical model permits determining the duration of cost-optimized burn-in and evaluating the resultant saving for repairable electronics systems. Infant mortality failures occur according to a nonhomogeneous Poisson Process; repair actions restore the system to a bad-as-old condition. The s-expected costs associated with factory and field failures are traded-off with the costs of implementing a burn-in program. Under the constraints of the model, the optimum burn-in duration and consequent cost saving are independent of the eventual life of the system in the field. A numerical example illustrates these concepts.