The reliability parameter and its importance for life cycle management
Abstract Increasing importance is being attached to the concept of Life Cycle Management, in military circles at least. The essential element in this concept is to take account of the total cost of ownership and operation of an equipment, or system - the initial capital cost, and the subsequent costs of operation and maintenance over the operational “life” of the equipment. The reliability parameter enters into both classes of cost, but not in any simple way. It interacts with a number of other factors - the complexity of the equipments, the planned availability, the response time for maintenance, the geographic distribution of the equipment, the length of the operational life, the end item cost, and the average cost of a repair action - to mention a few. In this paper we will discuss the nature of the interactions and give some parametric calculations to show the order of magnitude of the effects.