Life data analysis is a general term that contains all the different activities and modeling of reliability data. The term "Weibull Analysis" has also been extensively used to describe the analysis of life data. However, life data analysis goes beyond the Weibull distribution, and it includes analyses of recurrent events data (e.g. repairable systems), accelerated testing, comparing data sets, etc. In this tutorial we will review the different types of data, the different analysis models used when modeling life data, the most common mistakes in the analysis of life data and the most common results. Case studies will demonstrate the analysis and the results, as well as how these results can be used to perform further calculations (such as predicting warranty costs), obtaining the optimum time to perform preventive maintenance and making design selections.

Key Words: Life Data Analysis