Multi-Attribute Reliability and Maintainability Engineering Assessment Methodology
Frontier Technology, Inc (FTI) received a contract award to provide OC/ALC to research and develop concepts that provide a methodology to establish a standardized multi-attribute engineering assessment, demonstrate the proof of concept for such a capability, and develop a methodology that will consider overall requirements, functions, and priorities, and aid in engineering decisions for reliability, maintainability, and supportability for supply systems.
Supply Chain Systems Engineering is a complex activity that requires tradeoffs of multiple-attributes to achieve desired product performance. The manufacturing world has benefited from such initiatives as Lean Manufacturing, International Standard Organization (ISO), Six Sigma and other well known techniques designed to consider all manufacturing requirements. However, there are very few methodologies that exist for supply chain systems. The technical effectiveness of systems engineering at the component level is derived from component performance and availability. Therefore, a methodology to optimize performance and availability using requirements, functions, priorities, reliability, maintainability, and supportability as inputs is an important systems engineering tool. A number of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on Supply Chain, Project Management and Technology Transition have outlined significant challenges faced by the Department of Defense to improve and standardize product improvement. In an aging Air Force fleet, increased focus on performance and availability in supply chain management through systems engineering are required to maintain fleet operability. A methodology is needed to parse complex availability and performance attributes and support systems engineers in the ultimate task of product improvement. A methodology which effectively has this capability will help to mitigate safety and technical risks associated with product improvement initiatives for legacy aircraft systems.
The methodology should:
1) Include critical performance (requirements, functions, and priorities) and availability (reliability, maintainability, and supportability) attributes as inputs
2) Develop the relationship between performance and availability attributes
3) Explore and implement different advanced methodologies and techniques that enable the parsing of the attributes to achieve measurable technical effectiveness
4) Determine risk and scope limitations in the quest to achieve technical effectiveness
5) Develop systems engineering tool(s) to perform required analysis and derive technical effectiveness as output |
