Testing the untestable: reliability in the 21st century

As science and technology become increasingly sophisticated, government and industry are relying more and more on science's advanced methods to determine reliability. Unfortunately, political, economic, time, and other constraints imposed by the real world, inhibit the ability of researchers to calculate reliability efficiently and accurately. Because of such constraints, reliability must undergo an evolutionary change. The first step in this evolution is to re-interpret the concept so that it meets the new century's needs. The next step is to quantify reliability using both empirical methods and auxiliary data sources, such as expert knowledge, corporate memory, and mathematical modeling and simulation.