Maintainability: A Key To Effective Serviceability And Maintenance Management

Gets professionals quickly on-line with all the crucial design concepts and skills they need to dramatically improve the maintainability of their products or systems

Maintainability is a practical, step-by-step guide to implementing a comprehensive maintainability program within your organization's design and development function. From program scheduling, organizational interfacing, cost estimating, and supplier activities, to maintainability prediction, task analysis, formal design review, and maintainability tests and demonstrations, it describes all the planning and organizational aspects of maintainability for projects under development and
* Schools readers in state-of-the-art maintainability design techniques
* Demonstrates methods for quantitatively measuring maintainability at every stage of the development process
* Shows how to increase effectiveness while reducing life-cycle costs of already existing systems or products
* Features numerous case studies, sample applications, and practice exercises
* Functions equally well as a professional reference and a classroom text


Independent cost analysis studies indicate that an inordinately large percentage of the overall life-cycle cost of most systems/products is currently taken up by maintenance and support. In fact, for many large-scale systems, maintenance and support have been shown to account for as much as 60% to 75% of overall life-cycle costs. At a time of fierce global competition, long-term cost effectiveness is a major competitive advantage that manufacturers simply cannot afford to underestimate. Clearly then, to remain competitive in today's international marketplace, companies must institute programs for reducing system maintenance and support costs-- comprehensive programs that are an integral part of the design and development process from its earliest conceptual stages.

This book shows you how to implement such a program within your organization's design and development function. From program scheduling, organizational interfacing, cost estimating, and supplier activities, to maintainability prediction, task analysis, formal design review, and maintainability tests and demonstrations, it describes all the planning and organizational aspects of maintainability for projects under development while schooling you in the use of the full range of proven design techniques--including methods for quantitatively measuring maintainability at every stage of the development process. The authors also clearly explain how the principles and practices outlined in Maintainability can be applied to the evaluation of systems/products now in use both to increase their effectiveness and reduce long-term costs.

While theoretical aspects of maintainability are discussed, the authors' main purpose in writing this book is to help get professionals quickly on-line with the essential maintainability concepts and skills. Hence, in addition to clarity of presentation and a rational hierarchical format, Maintainability features many case studies and sample applications that help to clarify the points covered, and numerous practice exercises that help engineers to test their mastery of the concepts and techniques covered.

Maintainability is an invaluable professional tool for engineers from all disciplines who are involved with the design, testing, prototyping, manufacturing, and maintenance of products and systems. It also serves as a superior course book for graduate-level programs in those disciplines.

BENJAMIN S. BLANCHARD is Professor of Engineering and Assistant Dean, College of Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is Chairman of the Systems Engineering Graduate Program, responsible for the College's off-campus graduate engineering programs throughout Virginia, and coordinates the College's continuing education program activity. He teaches courses in systems engineering, reliability and maintainability, logistic support, maintenance management, and life-cycle costing. Professor Blanchard has worked in industry as a design engineer, field service engineer, staff engineer, and engineering manager. He is author and coauthor of numerous textbooks and journal articles, and is a frequent lecturer throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, and the United States.

DINESH VERMA is Senior Research Associate, Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He manages the Systems Design Laboratory and is pursuing research activities in systems engineering, maintainability and maintenance management, logistics, and fuzzy logic. His sponsored research activities have included the development of design evaluation software tools, and he has published a monograph and numerous technical papers in this and related areas.

ELMER L. PETERSON is an officer and private consultant with Intec Associates, Inc. He has taught many courses in systems engineering, maintainability, and logistics throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia for various universities and professional societies. Mr. Peterson has many years of industrial experience as a project manager for aircraft and space systems. His areas of expertise include: logistics, interim contractor support, systems engineering, and maintainability. Before joining industry, he spent twenty-one years in the U.S. Air Force as a maintenance and training specialist.

Planning for Maintainability.

Organization for Maintainability.

The Measures of Maintainability.

Development of the Maintenance Concept.

Maintainability Analysis.

Maintainability in Design.

Maintainability Prediction.

Maintenance Task Analysis (MTA).

Formal Design Review.

Maintainability Test and Demonstration.

Maintainability Applcations for Operating Systems.

Appendices.

Index.