Using rma monte carlo analysis as part of the systems engineering design process

Too often, the reliability engineering effort is an after-the-fact activity on a program. The support engineering disciplines, such as reliability and supportability engineering, are often found added-on to the tail-end of the design effort. In order to maximize operational effectiveness within today's cost and schedule constraints, reliability engineering needs to be a part of the up-front systems engineering effort on a program. Once in systems engineering, the role of reliability engineering needs to address the programs key TPMs (Technical Performance Metrics) within real-life operational scenarios. For example, a ship at sea changes its equipment configurations depending upon what mission it is performing at the time. At various points in time, the ship could be in-port, steaming to a new location, operating a specific mission, and then steaming to another location while picking-up supplies at mid-ocean before proceeding to another mission. In order to have the RMA (Reliability Maintainability Availability) engineering effort affect the ship's system design, RMA Monte Carlo modeling was used in the early system design stages to optimize Ao (operational Availability) with respect to system configuration, on-board spares and corrective maintenance hour allocations. The value of this paper to the RMA community is to show a case history where there were very positive results by having RMA engineering in a systems engineering design role on a program