  Lehmann's ideas on concepts of dependence have had a profound effect on
mathematical theory of reliability. The aim of this paper is two-fold. The
first is to show how the notion of a ``hazard potential'' can provide an
explanation for the cause of dependence between life-times. The second is to
propose a general framework under which two currently discussed issues in
reliability and in survival analysis involving interdependent stochastic
processes, can be meaningfully addressed via the notion of a hazard potential.
The first issue pertains to the failure of an item in a dynamic setting under
multiple interdependent risks. The second pertains to assessing an item's life
length in the presence of observable surrogates or markers. Here again the
setting is dynamic and the role of the marker is akin to that of a leading
indicator in multiple time series.
