An award for the most outstanding technical paper at the 2004 Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS), dedicated to the principles and ideas reflecting the values of the science of reliability, was presented to A/Prof LC Tang at the 50^th anniversary of the premium symposium in reliability. The Stan Ofsthun Award, comprises a plaque and US$1,000, is sponsored by the Society of Reliability Engineers for its members contributing papers in RAMS. The paper entitled “Planning of Step-stress Accelerated Degradation Test”, a joint work of LC Tang, GY Yang and M Xie, deals with optimal plan that minimizes the testing cost while satisfying a precision constraint for accelerated degradation testing under a step-stress profile. This year the symposium celebrates its 50 th anniversary and attracts more than 670 delegates from around the world.