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hand-book-of-performability-engineering 2008, vliii+1316 pages

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Performability Engineering has as its scope the evaluation of all aspects of system performance. This encompasses the evaluation of the reliability of the system, its costs, its sustainability, its quality, its safety, its risk, and all of its performance outputs. In covering this broad scope, the objective is to provide a unified framework for comparing and integrating all aspects of system performance. This provides the manager and decision-maker with a complete, consistent picture of the system. This is the promise and exciting prospect of Performability Engineering.

The chapters included in this handbook are diverse and represent the vitality of the different aspects of Performability Engineering. There are management-oriented chapters on the roles of reliability, safety, quality assurance, risk management, and performance management in the realm of performability management. There are chapters providing overview and the state-of-the-art on basic approaches being used in various disciplines. There are original technical contributions describing new methods and tools. Finally, there are chapters focusing on design and operational applications. The reader therefore has a veritable garden from which to feast from this impressive collection of chapters in the handbook.

In short, it is expected that this handbook will be found to be very useful by practicing engineers and researchers of the 21st Century in pursuing this challenging and relevant area for sustainable development.

The editor of the present Handbook of Performability Engineering, Dr. Krishna B. Misra, a retired eminent professor of the Indian Institute of Technology, took to reliability nearly four decades ago and is a renowned scholar of reliability. Professor Misra was awarded a plaque by IEEE Reliability Society, in 1995, “in recognition of his meritorious and outstanding contributions to Reliability Engineering and furthering of Reliability Engineering Education and Development in India”. Upon his retirement in 2005 from IIT, Kharagpur, where he established the first ever Reliability Engineering Centre in India and the postgraduate course in Reliability Engineering in 1982, he launched the International Journal of Performability Engineering in 2005 and has since led the journal as its inaugural Editor-in-Chief.

…. The timely publication of this handbook necessarily reflects the changing scenario of the 21st century’s holistic view of designing, producing and using products, systems or services which satisfy the performance requirements of a customer to the best possible extent.

Having reviewed the contents of this voluminous handbook, and its contributed chapters, I find it clearly covers the entire canvas of performability: quality, reliability, maintainability, safety and sustainability. The handbook addresses how today’s systems need to be not only dependable (implying survivability and safety) but also sustainable. Modern systems need to be addressed in a practical way instead of simply as a mathematical abstract, often bearing no physical meaning at all. In fact, performability engineering not only aims at producing products, systems and services that are dependable but also involves developing economically viable and safe processes of modern technologies, including clean production that entails minimal environmental pollution. Performability engineering extends the traditionally defined performance requirements to incorporate the modern notion of requiring optimal quantities of material and energy in order to yield safe and reliable products that can be disposed of without causing any adverse effects on the environment at the end of their life cycle.

The chapters included in this handbook have undergone a thorough review and have been carefully devised. These chapters collectively address the issues related to performability engineering. I expect the handbook will create an interest in performability and will bring about the intended interaction between various players of performability engineering.

I firmly believe this handbook will be widely used by the practicing engineers as well as serve as a guide to students and teachers, who have an interest in conducting research in the totality of performance requirements of the modern systems of practical use. I would also like to congratulate Dr. Misra once again for taking the bold initiative of editing this historical volume.

I was truly impressed by its overall appearance, layout, diversity of chapters and the impressive amount of work you, personally, have put into it. No doubt, this is the first book, which interrelates the subject matter of the various chapters to the platform of Performability. .. One has to learn a lot by going deeper into the various contributions and certainly, this book will stand as one which will motivate more work by many new researchers in the coming years.

This is an excellent handbook that covers comprehensive topics including engineering design, system reliability modeling, safety analysis and perspectives, design optimization, environmental risk analysis, engineering management, roadmap for sustainability, performance economical analysis, quality management and engineering, process control, six sigma, robust design, continuous improvements, load-sharing system analysis, repairable system reliability, multiple phase-mission system reliability and imperfect coverage, Markov and Semi-Markov system reliability analysis, field data analysis, multi-state system reliability analysis, optimization, accelerated life testing, fault trees, common cause analysis, human-system interaction analysis, safety control analysis, probabilistic risk assessment, risk analysis and management, maintenance, sustainability, performability, replacement policies, MEMS, medical device analysis, electro and mechanical reliability assessment, Wireless communication network reliability, distributed system computing, fault-tolerant system reliability, software reliability, and reliability growth models.

I am sure that many, if not all, practitioners and researchers in the areas of reliability, safety, maintainability and related fields, including beginning students who are majoring or thinking of entering in reliability/performability research, will find this Handbook useful in many ways – looking for methodologies, solutions, problems or research ideas

Performability engineering is defined as aggregative effort in achieving desired levels of sustainability, safety, quality, reliability and maintainability of products, systems or services. The scope of this complex discipline is extremely wide: from evaluating and optimizing system cost, quality and reliability to estimating and mitigating associated risks. All these aspects are based on analysis of system performance, which urges analysts to elaborate a unified framework for solving different problems based on a holistic view of designing, producing and using the systems. Developing such unified framework for providing decision-makers with complete and consistent information is primary goal of performability engineering.

Handbook of Performability Engineering” is the first handbook, which integrates the subject matter of the various analytical and practical approaches within the wide platform of performability. Some of the chapters present design and operational applications. Other chapters are management-oriented and address reliability, safety, quality assurance, risk management, and performance management. Original technical contributions describing new methods and tools complemented by overviews presenting the state-of-the-art of basic approaches related to performability engineering. Looking to the number of pages in each chapter and the arrangement of chapters, it can be said that the editor has carefully devised this voluminous Handbook, which in some way appears to be a compendium to his effort when he launched the International Journal of Performability Engineering in 2005 to bring different players in the constituent areas of performability engineering to a common platform of interaction.

The reviewer contends that this handbook will be widely used by the practicing engineers and managers in the areas of reliability, safety, sustainability and related fields. It can also serve as a guide to students and teachers as well as a useful asset to researchers looking for ideas, methodologies, problems and solutions. I believe that the handbook will create an increasing interest in performability engineering and will stimulate interaction between researchers working in different fields related to performability engineering. I would like to congratulate Dr. Misra for editing this historical volume.