In the modern scenario, reliability has becomes the most challenging and demanding theory. The theory and the methods of reliability analysis have been developed significantly during the last 40 years and have also been acknowledged in a number of publications. So, a reliability engineer is aware about the importance of each reliability measure of the system and its fields. In this research work, a survey of reliability approaches in various fields of engineering and physical sciences is carried out. In this survey, the author tried to provide the major areas i.e. past, current and future trends of reliability methods and applications for the readers. © 2013 The Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM), India and The Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.