About QRE Center

The Department of Industrial Engineering at Rutgers University and the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at Arizona State University propose to establish a National Science Foundation Industry University Cooperative Research Center for Quality and Reliability Engineering. The University of Arizona will be an affiliate member. The purposes of the Center will be (i) to explore, develop and conduct research to provide innovative and practical ways to improve components, products and systems, (ii) to foster collaborative research projects between industrial and academic scientists, and (iii) to promote an interdisciplinary and intra-university approach to training students in quality and reliability engineering research and development.

The organizational structure of the Center comprises an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB), Center Site Directors at both universities, and a University Policy Committee. The Industrial Advisory Board, consisting of one voting member from each participating company, provides advice on research priorities and makes recommendations on projects to be funded. The Center Director manages, in collaboration with the IAB, sets goals and future directions of research, manages the day-to-day operation of the Center and acts as a liaison with member companies as well as the university administration. The University Policy Committee assures that the Center's activities are consistent with academic policies and procedures of the university.

The proposed research agenda will focus on the development of new generic methodologies that improve products during its design, production and manufacturing, and post production phases. Issues related to multivariate quality characteristics, product reliability prediction, software reliability and validation, on-line quality engineering, product and process optimization and product degradation will be investigated. Representative research projects proposed for the first year are described in the proposal and include multivariate quality control, process optimization when the product characteristics are subjective, reliability prediction using accelerated testing, and software reliability.

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