Reliability improvement to minimize average procurement unit cost of a rotorcraft fleet

Tradespace Exploration (TSE) is a Department of Defense (DOD) Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) thrust, with overarching goals to develop processes and products capable of performing in a wide range of adverse conditions commonly encountered by military systems. TSE technologies are modernizing system engineering, facilitating stakeholder engagement through distributed collaborative environments for design and analysis of alternatives. However, the majority of TSE research emphasizes tradeoffs between functional requirements, especially those related to performance, not nonfunctional requirements such as reliability, availability, and maintainability, which impact operation and support costs (O&S). This paper presents a model to explicitly consider the impact of reliability improvement on availability and cost with special attention to fleet size and average procurement unit cost (APUC). Examples illustrate how reliability improvement could significantly increase availability as well as reduce lifecycle and average procurement unit cost.