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This study investigates the applications of aviation maintenance data used with the data analysis tools of Total Quality Management (TQM). This is a case study using the aviation maintenance data produced at Helicopter And- Submarine (Light) Three Seven (HSL-37), NAS Barbers Pt, HI, from September 1990 to August 1991. In 1991, the U. S. Navy began the process of implementing Total Quality Management developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. This study explores the sufficiency of the data produced by the squadron as measured by the results of TQM analysis tools. This study shows how aviation maintenance data from this squadron would be analyzed with TQM analysis tools used in the Shewart Cycle in TQM. It was designed to identify limits and shortfalls in data, and categories of data required that would be needed by the squadron in conducting TQM. It also provides a guide for TQM data analysis for naval squadrons conducting TQM.

This study investigates the applications of aviation maintenance data used with the data analysis tools of Total Quality Management (TQM). This is a case study using the aviation maintenance data produced at Helicopter Anti-Submarine (Light) Three Seven (HSL-37), NAS Barbers Pt, HI, from September 1990 to August 1991. In 1991, the U.S. Navy began the process of implementing Total Quality Management developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. This study explores the sufficiency of the data produced by the squadron as measured by the results of TQM analysis tools. This study shows how aviation maintenance data from this squadron would be analyzed with TQM analysis tools used in the Shewart Cycle in TQM. It was designed to identify limits and shortfalls in data, and categories of data required that would be needed by the squadron in conducting TQM. It also provides a guide for TQM data analysis for naval squadrons conducting TQM.

This thesis is concerned with the lifetime distribution of a device subject to environmental shocks. The terms "device" and "shock" are used here in an abstract sense and although industrial interpretations are the most obvious, the models described in this thesis can also be applied in other fields, for example, in biology and finance. Several models are presented and in each case the main question of interest is to determine the class of distributions to which the lifetime distribution associated with the model belongs. This approach to the study of shock models is taken since it is often difficult to derive an explicit expression for the lifetime distribution of a device, but if the class to which the distribution belongs can be identified it is usually possible to obtain a bound on the distribution. Since classes of lifetime distribution have an important role to play in the study of shock models and in reliability theory generally, the first part of this thesis is devoted to a review of the classes which have proved useful in these areas. The classes are defined and some justification for their use in reliability theory is provided. In addition, alternative characterisations of the classes are given and it is shown that a function which is closely related to the Laplace transform can be used to characterise all the classes. The discussion of shock models commences, in chapter two, with a survey of results pertaining to the standard shock model:- where H̅(t) = 1 - H(t) is the lifetime distribution of a device subject to shocks whose arrival is governed by the stochastic counting process {N(t)}. The probability that the device survives K shocks is given by P̅к where k=0,1,2,...... This model has received a good deal of attention in the literature (see, for example, Esary, Marshall and Proschan (1973), A-Hameed and Proschan (1975), Klefsjo (1981, 1985). The most striking feature of the model is that under appropriate conditions on {N(t)} the lifetime distribution