Reliability versus unreliability
Reliability and unreliability are mathematically complements. Like a seesaw. If one goes up, the other goes down. This is also valid for their root-causes. We can distinguish between the next disciplines in a company.
For the right meaning of company see <company vs reliability>
Concerning reliability we know next important disciplines:
- The creators (called bottom-uppers) being:
Developers and reliability engineers. Bottom-Uppers are the primary source for reliability. Reliability should be built-in.
- The managers (called top-downers)
being
Anyone who can take decisions in the area of man capacity, time and money and includes purchasing departments. Top-Downers are the primary source for unreliability but don't realize it.
- Anyone else
They do not contribute to the intrinsic reliability of a product. They can only make it worse. They are disciplines like quality departments, manufacturing, service and other supporting departments
Note that quality people and reliability engineers are different disciplines in this context. No matter what, all disciplines are responsible for their part of the quality.