Probabilistic design is a discipline within engineering design. It deals primarily with the consideration and minimization of the effects of random variability upon the performance of an engineering system during the design phase. Typically, these effects studied and optimized are related to quality and reliability. It differs from the classical approach to design by assuming a small probability of failure instead of using the safety factor. Probabilistic design is used in a variety of different applications to assess the likelihood of failure. Disciplines which extensively use probabilistic design principles include product design, quality control, systems engineering, machine design, civil engineering (particularly useful in limit state design) and manufacturing.

When using a probabilistic approach to design, the designer no longer thinks of each variable as a single value or number. Instead, each variable is viewed as a continuous random variable with a probability distribution. From this perspective, probabilistic design predicts the flow of variability (or distributions) through a system.

Because there are so many sources of random and systemic variability when designing materials and structures, it is greatly beneficial for the designer to model the factors studied as random variables. By considering this model, a designer can make adjustments to reduce the flow of random variability, thereby improving engineering quality. Proponents of the probabilistic design approach contend that many quality problems can be predicted and rectified during the early design stages and at a much reduced cost.

Typically, the goal of probabilistic design is to identify the design that will exhibit the smallest effects of random variability. Minimizing random variability is essential to probabilistic design because it limits uncontrollable factors, while also providing a much more precise determination of failure probability. This could be the one design option out of several that is found to be most robust. Alternatively, it could be the only design option available, but with the optimum combination of input variables and parameters. This second approach is sometimes referred to as robustification, parameter design or design for six sigma.

Though the laws of physics dictate the relationships between variables and measurable quantities such as force, stress, strain, and deflection, there are still three primary sources of variability when considering these relationships.

The first source of variability is statistical, due to the limitations of having a finite sample size to estimate parameters such as yield stress, Young's modulus, and true strain. Measurement uncertainty is the most easily minimized out of these three sources, as variance is proportional to the inverse of the sample size.

We can represent variance due to measurement uncertainties as a corrective factor ${\displaystyle B}$, which is multiplied by the true mean ${\displaystyle X}$ to yield the measured mean of ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}}$. Equivalently, ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}={\bar {B}}X}$.

This yields the result ${\displaystyle {\bar {B}}={\frac {\bar {X}}{X}}}$, and the variance of the corrective factor ${\displaystyle B}$ is given as: