Enhancing supportability through life-cycle definitions

Design specifications for functional systems are typically derived from the extreme environmental conditions expected during their operational use. This practice can result in a system which is extremely over designed, and therefore excessively heavy, expensive and complex. A prime example is the military's requirement for cold temperature operations of -55 C, a temperature that has not been reached in twenty years. Equally likely, a system design based on operational environments may be inadequately designed since nonoperational environments, such as handling, transportation, storage, and maintenance may have been ignored. If these nonoperational environments prove to drive the durability of the system, failures will occur and the system's reliability will suffer, resulting in increased life cycle costs and reduced operational readiness. The United States Air Force has recognized this shortcoming in the design process and requires newly developed systems to be designed to endure the environments imposed by the entire life cycle profile-from manufacturing through deployment, operational usage and maintenance. Unfortunately, the procedures and data used to develop these life cycle profiles are not consistent from one development to the next. The Mission Environmental Requirements Integration Technology Program (MERIT) was created to provide a solution to this problem. This technology will result in decreased environmental definition costs, an optimum design for a given application, reduced cycle times and decreased life cycle warranty and maintenance costs.