Design for Reliability

• Concept of Operation Definition/Mission Profile/Design
• Reference Mission Definition
• Reliability Requirements Analysis & Allocation
• Reliability Modeling and Analysis
• Reliability Predictions (MIL-HDBK-217F, Telcordia/Bellcore)
• Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)
• Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
• HALT/ESS Screening Support
• COTS/NDI Reliability Assessment
• Continual Reliability Assessment of Fielded Systems

Maintainability Engineering
Understanding that all systems eventually fail, the design must call for rapid and economical repair within the confines of the user’s maintenance and support system. HEI’s maintainability engineers interface with design engineers in designing for maintainability to improve operational readiness by reducing the requirements for manpower and other logistics resources (i.e., skills training, special support and test equipment, extensive technical manuals, special facilities, etc.). 
HEI’s maintainability engineers strive to influence the equipment design to allow for easy, quick, and cost-effective repair when the system fails. Tasks performed include the following:

Design for Maintainability

• Systems Maintenance Concept Definition
• Failure Diagnosis/Embedded Diagnostics/Bit/Prognostics Requirements Development
• Maintainability Modeling and Analysis
• High Level Maintenance and Repair Philosophy Development
• Maintainability Requirements & Analysis
• Maintainability Prediction
• Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM)
• Human-Systems Integration
• Maintenance Task Analysis
• Level of Repair Analysis (LORA)
• Maintainability Demonstration
• Continuous Maintainability Assessment of Fielded System

Supportability Engineering
To provide a truly supportability product, supportability considerations must be addressed early in the design process.  This means the system should be designed or selected (COTS) to fit the users’ environment (the established operating, maintenance, and support system). Thus, we need to know what the environment includes:  skills availability, mission and use profiles, repair levels and facilities, test equipment, support equipment, storage and transportation capabilities, etc. The goal is not to force changes on the user to operate, maintain, or support the new system.
HEI’s supportability engineers find ways to work with the customer during the early program phase to identify the support implications of the program.  This identification of support implications is provided as input to the supportability analysis.  HEI supportability engineers design for supportability, logistics, reliability, and maintainability engineering specialists to identify and quantify the technical and cost impacts of product designs.  Supportability tasks we perform include the following:

Design for Supportability

• Support Concept of Operational Definition
• Systems Analysis from Commonality
• Systems Component Interchangeability Analysis
• Compliance with Open Systems Analysis
• Analysis of Vendors from Maturity & Stability
• Technology Analysis from a Proprietary and Maturity Perspective
• Application of Multi-Media Techniques, Information Technology, and Instructional Technology
• Obsolescence Management and Technology Refreshment Analysis
• Supportability Demonstration
• Continuous Supportability Assessment of Fielded Systems

Testability Engineering
An integral part of the overall design effort of electronic equipment is testability engineering.  The importance of this is that testability engineering addresses the requirements for testing that must be considered in the development and design of electronic equipment or systems.  HEI’s testability engineers influence the system design to make the final product as testable as possible.

HEI testability engineers perform testability analysis as a method for the evaluation of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of BIT/BITE design, such as Fault Detection Probability, BIT coverage and Fault isolation Resolution.  HEI engineers perform testability in conjunction with FMEA.

 System Safety Engineering
No matter how good the design, if a system or product cannot be operated and maintained safely, it is unacceptable.  HEI’s systems safety engineers implement systems safety programs that continually evaluate the evolving design to identify potential hazards and assist design engineers in resolving safety issues.  HEI’s safety engineers influence using a systematic analysis and evaluation approach that results in equipment that is safe as possible to operate and maintain.

Human-Systems Integration (HSI) Engineering
Items of equipment, with few exceptions, require human interaction for operation and maintenance.  HEI’s HSI engineers optimize this human-to-machine interface by first identifying and analyzing the functions that the equipment is required to perform.  The functions are then assimilated in logical flow and processing sequence to identify exactly which ones are critical, in terms of human engineering to mission accomplishments.  The results of this analysis are used as input to the design process to ensure that human-to-machine interfaces are optimized.

Services Life Cycle Cost (LCC)
Our ILS experts perform LCC analyses for various systems: from minor systems consisting of several LRUs, up to entire weapons systems.  Starting from preliminary LCCA for the stage of concept evaluation, all the way up to an elaborate evaluation of alternatives leading to the final decision making stage.  The combination of all steps of the LCC, or application of a selected few, depend on the complexity and needs of a project:

• Creation of a Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) with cost models for each CBS element
• Definition of a set of all feasible alternatives, i.e., design configurations, operational and environmental profiles, maintenance and logistics policies, distribution channels, transportation options.
• Total LCC calculation for the entire system/system part for any activity for each alternative and for each period of the life cycle.
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Generation of required reports – tables and graphs.

• Producibility
• System Ownership Cost/Cost as an Independent Variable