Developing the stockpile reliability program plan for a new missile

A Stockpile Reliability Program (SRP) Plan is written during the development of a new missile system. The SRP is utilized to ensure that the fielded missiles remain safe and reliable throughout the life of the system. There are numerous SRP approaches currently being applied to existing missile systems. The contents of this paper do not imply that they should be the same. A cost trade-off process can be applied to deciding the best potential SRP approaches to apply to a missile system in development. The general characteristics, capabilities and limitations of a new system identify which sets of approach options should be considered. The level of confidence desired in order to ascertain the system's continuing reliability and to identify trends is treated as a constant. Therefore, a cost trade-off analysis can be performed on the sets of approach options. Assessing the SRP program from a lifecycle cost perspective also feeds back into system design decisions, identifying when up front investment in test or environmental and health monitoring capabilities is cost effective. This provides a structured comparison of rel evant SRP approaches for a new missile system in order to develop a plan which will best achieve lower costs, reduce logistics impacts, and attain higher readiness across the lifecycle of the specific system being considered.