Methodology to improve failure prediction accuracy by fusing textual data with reliability model

A method for creating reliability models for a vehicle sub-system or component, said method comprising:

• providing a database containing information about vehicle service events;
• exporting a text document from the database, said text document containing technician comments about the service events;
• extracting failure modes from the text document using a digital computing device encoded with text mining techniques;
• creating reliability models for the vehicle sub-system or component using the failure modes which were extracted, including a reliability model for each of the failure modes;
• and
• using the reliability models to predict a number of failures of the vehicle sub-system or component at a given exposure.

A system for creating reliability models for a vehicle sub-system or component, said system comprising:

• means for providing a text document containing technician comments about service events on the vehicle sub-system or component;
• a digital computing device encoded with text mining techniques for extracting failure modes from the text document;
• and
• means for creating reliability models for the vehicle sub-system or component using the failure modes which were extracted.