Hertzbach (Gertsbakh) Ilya Borukhovich (b. 1933, Riga) – Mechanical engineer and mathematician.
Ilya Hertzbach earned his first degree from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Latvian State University in 1955 and his second degree in Mathematics in 1961. He received his Candidate of Technical Sciences degree in 1964.
From the early 1950s to 1961, he worked as an engineer at the VEF factory. He then joined the Riga Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers, serving as a lecturer, group leader, and senior researcher in its computing centre from 1965 to 1972. Between 1972 and 1974, he was a senior researcher at the Institute of Light Industry.
In 1974, Dr Hertzbach emigrated to Israel.
From 1975 until his retirement in 1999, he was on the faculty of Mathematics and Computer Engineering at Ben-Gurion University: initially as a senior lecturer and, from 1989, as a full professor.
Ilya Hertzbach is renowned for his work in applied probability theory, statistical reliability theory, and maintenance theory of complex systems. A disciple and close collaborator of Professor Kh. B. Kordonsky—a leading probability theorist—Dr Hertzbach co-authored landmark books that shaped the field: Models of Failure (1966, co-authored with Kordonsky) and Models of Preventive Maintenance (1969). Both works were later translated into English and remain central to modern reliability theory. At the end of the 1960s, under Kordonsky’s guidance, Dr Hertzbach and his team developed computer programmes for Aeroflot’s central aircraft scheduling system.
Author of five books and over 60 articles in top international scientific journals, Ilya Hertzbach became Vice-President of the informal international Gnedenko Forum, uniting hundreds of specialists in risk and reliability theory from over 40 countries. He also served as an editor of the electronic journal Reliability: Theory & Applications, published by the Forum gnedenko.net+5gnedenko.net+5researchgate.net+5.
Selected publications:
Models of Failure (Springer, 1969; with Kh. B. Kordonsky)
Models of Preventive Maintenance (North-Holland, 1977)
Statistical Reliability Theory (Marcel Dekker, 1989)
Reliability Theory With Applications to Preventive Maintenance (Springer, 2000)
Measurement Theory for Engineers (Springer, 2003)