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The terms used in most engineering technologies tend to be physical characteristics such as speed, rate of turn, and fuel consumption. While they may require very careful definition and control of the way in which they are measured, the terms themselves are not subject to different interpretations. Reliability, maintainability and supportability (RMS) however, use terms that are mathematically defined. As a result, there are more than 2000 terms defined in just the documents reviewed so far, many of which have multiple interpretations. This proliferation of definitions of the terms leads to problems when one attempts to compare the performance of one system to another. For example, the RMS performance of a transport aircraft from the commercial arena is measured using metrics that are not the same as those for a fighter or attack aircraft from a military service.

This AIR by the G-11AT (Automation and Tools) subcommittee, examines the failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) requirements and procedures as performed on current and earlier vintage engineering programs. The subcommittee has focused on these procedures in relation to the concurrent engineering (CE) environment to determine where it may be beneficial, to both FMECA analysts and users, to automate some or all of the FMECA processes. Its purpose is to inform the reader about FMECAs and how the FMECA process could be automated in a concurrent engineering environment. There is no intent on the part of the authors that the material presented should become requirements or specifications imposed as part of any future contract. The report is structured to include the following subjects: a A FMECA overview b The current FMECA process c FMECA in the concurrent engineering environment d FMECA automation e The benefits of automation

This SAE Aerospace Information Report (AIR) provides an overview of the issues relating to the support and supportability of software in computer-based systems. It has general applicability to all sectors of industry and commerce and to all types of equipment that contain software. The software support issues and activities summarized in this report are reasonably easy to comprehend. The reader should not be mislead into believing development of supportable software is easy to achieve. The target audience for the document includes software acquisition organizations, developers, supporters, and end-use customers.

In 1994, the SAE G-11 Reliability, Maintainability, Supportability and Logistics (RMSL) Division chartered a software committee, G-11SW, to create several software standards and guidance documents across the RMSL spectrum, including a software reliability program standard and implementation guidelines. The committee was formed as a cross section of international representatives from commercial industries and governments. The G-11SW committee has developed a standard (JA1002) and these implementation guidelines (JA1003) that are consistent with a SAE G-11 system level reliability program standard (JA1000) and guidelines (JA1000-1), augmented by necessary software-specific information. The G-11SW committee believes these documents reflect the best current commercial practices, and meet the objectives of the United States Department of Defense Acquisition Reform initiative and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Reliability Program.

The importance of reliability in design engineering has significantly grown since the early 1960’s. Competition has been a primary driver in this growth. The three realities of competition today are: world class quality and reliability, cost-effectiveness, and fast time-to-market. Formerly, companies could effectively compete if they could achieve at least two of these features in their products and product development processes, often at the expense of the third. However, customers today, whether military, aerospace, or commercial, have been sensitized to a higher level of expectation and demand products that are highly reliable, yet affordable. Product development practices are shifting in response to this higher level of expectation. Today, there is seldom time, or necessary resources to extensively test, analyze, and fix to achieve high quality and reliability.

The terms used in most engineering technologies tend to be physical characteristics such as speed, rate of turn, and fuel consumption. While they may require very careful definition and control of the way in which they are measured, the terms themselves are not subject to different interpretations. Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability (RMS) however, use terms that are defined in a variety of ways with multiple interpretations. The variety of definitions given to a single term creates problems when trying to compare the performance of one system to another. To eliminate the confusion, a literature search that listed current and past RMS terms and definitions was conducted. The literature search included input from the US Military, UK Military, NATO, SAE, IEEE, NASA, ISO, University Research, and other publications. The object was to determine the common definition of Reliability Terms from a variety of sources.

Recommended Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Practices For Non-Automobile Applications describes the basic procedures for performing a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). It encompasses functional, interface, and detailed FMEA, as well as certain pre-analysis activities (FMEA planning and functional requirements analysis), post-analysis activities (failure latency analysis, FMEA verification, and documentation), and applications to hardware, software, and process design. It is intended for use by organizations whose product development processes use FMEA as a tool for assessing the safety and reliability of system elements, or as part of their product improvement processes. A separate, Surface Vehicle Recommended Practice, J1739, is intended for use in automobile applications.

This standard requires the developers and customer/users working as a team to plan and implement a reliability program that provides systems/products that satisfy the user’s requirements and expectations. The user’s requirements and needs are expressed in the form of the following four reliability objectives: The developer shall solicit, investigate, analyze, understand and agree to the user’s requirements and product needs. The developer, working with the customer and user, shall include the activities necessary to ensure that the user’s requirements and product needs are fully understood and defined, so that a comprehensive design specification and Reliability Program Plan can be generated. The developer shall use well-defined reliability- and systems-engineering processes to develop, design, and verify that the system/product meets the user’s documented reliability requirements and needs.

This Handbook provides “how to” guidance to industry and government for the reliability Activities and Methods contained in GEIASTD0009 for developing reliable products and systems, successfully demonstrating them during test and evaluation, and sustaining them throughout the system/product life cycle. GEIASTD0009 requires the developers and customer/users working as a team to plan and implement a reliability program that provides systems/products that satisfy the user’s requirements and expectations using a systems engineering approach. The four Objectives of GEIASTD0009 are listed below: Objective 1: Understand customer/user requirements and constraints. The team (developer, customer, and user) includes the Activities necessary to ensure that the user’s requirements and product needs are fully understood and defined, so that a comprehensive design specification and Reliability program plan are generated. Objective 2: Design and redesign for reliability.

This handbook provides “how to” guidance to industry and government for the reliability Activities and Methods contained in ANSI/GEIA-STD-0009 for developing reliable products and systems, successfully demonstrating them during test and evaluation, and sustaining them throughout the system/product life cycle. ANSI/GEIA-STD-0009 requires the developers and customer/users working as a team to plan and implement a reliability program that provides systems/products that satisfy the user’s requirements and expectations using a systems engineering approach. The four Objectives of ANSI/GEIA-STD-0009 are listed below: Objective 1: Understand Customer/User Requirements and constraints. The team (developer, customer, and user), includes the Activities necessary to ensure that the user’s requirements and product needs are fully understood and defined, so that a comprehensive design specification and Reliability Program Plan are generated. Objective 2: Design and redesign for reliability.

This SAE Aerospace Information Report (AIR) provides an overview of the issues relating to the support and supportability of software in computer-based systems. It has general applicability to all sectors of industry and commerce and to all types of equipment that contain software. The software support issues and activities summarized in this report are reasonably easy to comprehend. The reader should not be mislead into believing development of supportable software is easy to achieve. The target audience for the document includes software acquisition organizations, developers, supporters, and end-use customers.

The importance of reliability in design engineering has significantly grown since the early 1960’s. Competition has been a primary driver in this growth. The three realities of competition today are: world class quality and reliability, cost-effectiveness, and fast time-to-market. Formerly, companies could effectively compete if they could achieve at least two of these features in their products and product development processes, often at the expense of the third. However, customers today, whether military, aerospace, or commercial, have been sensitized to a higher level of expectation and demand products that are highly reliable, yet affordable. Product development practices are shifting in response to this higher level of expectation. Today, there is seldom time, or necessary resources to extensively test, analyze, and fix to achieve high quality and reliability.

This SAE Recommended Practice provides recommended guidelines and best practices for implementing a supportability program to ensure that software is supportable throughout its life cycle. This Implementation Guide is the companion to the Software Supportability Program Standard, SAE JA1004, that describes, within a Plan-Case framework, what software supportability performance requirements are necessary. This document has general applicability to all sectors of industry and commerce and to all types of equipment whose functionality is to some degree implemented via software. It is intended to be guidance for business purposes and should be applied when it provides a value-added basis for the business aspects of development, use, and sustainment of support-critical software. Applicability of specific recommended practices will depend on the support-significance of the software, application domain, and life cycle stage of the software.

This document provides methods and techniques for implementing a reliability program throughout the full life cycle of a software product, whether the product is considered as standalone or part of a system. This document is the companion to the Software Reliability Program Standard [JA1002]. The Standard describes the requirements of a software reliability program to define, meet, and demonstrate assurance of software product reliability using a Plan-Case framework and implemented within the context of a system application. This document has general applicability to all sectors of industry and commerce and to all types of equipment whose functionality is to some degree implemented by software components. It is intended to be guidance for business purposes and should be applied when it provides a value-added basis for the business aspects of development, use, and sustainment of software whose reliability is an important performance parameter.

This standard requires the developers and customer/user’s working as a team to plan and implement a reliability program that provides systems/products that satisfy the user’s requirements and expectations. The user’s requirements and needs are expressed in the form of the following four reliability objectives: The developer shall solicit, investigate, analyze, understand and agree to the user’s requirements and product needs. The developer, working with the customer and user, shall include the activities necessary to ensure that the user’s requirements and product needs are fully understood and defined, so that a comprehensive design specification and Reliability Program Plan can be generated. The developer shall use well-defined reliability- and systems-engineering processes to develop, design, and verify that the system/product meets the user’s documented reliability requirements and needs.

The terms used in most engineering technologies tend to be physical characteristics such as speed, rate of turn, and fuel consumption. While they may require very careful definition and control of the way in which they are measured, the terms themselves are not subject to different interpretations. Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability (RMS) however, use terms that are defined in a variety of ways with multiple interpretations. The variety of definitions given to a single term creates problems when trying to compare the performance of one system to another. To eliminate the confusion, a literature search that listed current and past RMS terms and definitions was conducted. The literature search included input from the US Military, UK Military, NATO, SAE, IEEE, NASA, ISO, University Research, and other publications. The object was to determine the common definition of Reliability Terms from a variety of sources.

The terms used in most engineering technologies tend to be physical characteristics such as speed, rate of turn, and fuel consumption. While they may require very careful definition and control of the way in which they are measured, the terms themselves are not subject to different interpretations. Reliability, maintainability and supportability (RMS) however, use terms that are mathematically defined. As a result, there are more than 2000 terms defined in just the documents reviewed so far, many of which have multiple interpretations. This proliferation of definitions of the terms leads to problems when one attempts to compare the performance of one system to another. For example, the RMS performance of a transport aircraft from the commercial arena is measured using metrics that are not the same as those for a fighter or attack aircraft from a military service.

This AIR by the G-11AT (Automation and Tools) subcommittee, examines the failure mode, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) requirements and procedures as performed on current and earlier vintage engineering programs. The subcommittee has focused on these procedures in relation to the concurrent engineering (CE) environment to determine where it may be beneficial, to both FMECA analysts and users, to automate some or all of the FMECA processes. Its purpose is to inform the reader about FMECAs and how the FMECA process could be automated in a concurrent engineering environment. There is no intent on the part of the authors that the material presented should become requirements or specifications imposed as part of any future contract. The report is structured to include the following subjects: a A FMECA overview b The current FMECA process c FMECA in the concurrent engineering environment d FMECA automation e The benefits of automation