The idea of a "bathtub" is often used to describe the failure rate curve. When searching the Internet and other sources (some old textbooks) they got a zillion hits (or at least a very large number) on the subject. But what is needed is a concise answer to explain this concept to the non-engineer, non-logistician CEO. A figure. A brief explanation of the elapsed time and the failure rate. A time period/region (or is that periods/regions?). The characteristics of each period/region that the cycle/curve covers