Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1415897
10 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2021 Manufacturers and customers alike embrace a product's reliability as the priority. Accord- ingly, if I say "reliability" is a relative term, would you respond with "Why is it relative?" Well, when we look at the reliability, be it as- sociated with a physical product or virtual ser- vice, there is a set of performance expectations from the users or the customers. Take a smart- phone or a car as an example; a manufacturer provides the product warranty with a specified timeline and other specificities. If the product does not perform within the warranty time, the manufacturer or the authorized distributor will fix the problem free-of-charge, although the user (the customer) prefers not to experi- ence any inconvenient return or repair. By the same token, if the product encounters a prob- lem outside the warranty, it is the customer's luck—or out of luck, such as if a new car sadly crashes and the warranty is not honored. Another materiality worth noting is that a literally "perfect" product is hard to come by, if ever. is can be vividly illustrated by the con- tinued rollout of new models of smartphones since its debut approximately 25 years ago; ev- ery new model offers additional performances that are useful and enjoyable to use. And every new model of the smartphones has approached another level of perfection and reliable performance. What does this mean to us? Is perfect the enemy of the good? What is Reliability? Reliability, in reference to the Oxford Languag- es dictionary, is defined as the quality of being trust- worthy or of performing consistently well; trust- worthiness is doing what the system is expected or designed to do. A product's reliability is an operational reliabili- ty, which can be practical- Reliability Primer— A Pragmatic SMT Perspective SMT Prospects & Perspectives by Dr. Jennie S. Hwang, CEO, H-TECHNOLOGIES GROUP