Overview of Accelerated Life Test Plan

Use Accelerated Life Test Plan to determine the number of units to test and how to allocate those units across stress levels for an accelerated life test. You can also use this analysis to determine the standard error for the parameter that you want to estimate for a fixed number of test units.

Use an accelerated life test plan to answer questions such as:

How many units should you test to estimate the 10th percentile with a 95% lower confidence bound within 100 hours of the estimate?
What is the best allocation of 20 units across 3 stress levels in order to estimate the reliability at 1000 hours?
Twenty units are available for testing. What standard error can you expect for the estimate of the 500-hour reliability?

When you create an accelerated life test plan, you provide the stress values and, optionally, the proportionate allocation of test units. A test with no censoring continues until 100% of the units fail. Minitab evaluates the resulting plans and displays the three best plans for minimizing the standard error of the estimate.

Where to find this analysis

To create an accelerated life test plan, choose Stat > Reliability/Survival > Test Plans > Accelerated Life Testing.

When to use an alternate analysis

To create a plan for a demonstration test, use Demonstration Test Plan.
To create a plan for an estimation test, use Estimation Test Plan.