Abstract :
In order to assure that the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Airspace System (NAS) equipments are reliable, maintainable and cost effective, a comprehensive methodology for achieving optimum Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) levels has been developed by the Airway Facilities Service in the FAA. This paper describes the methodology, its approach and the specific life cycle cost (LCC) models used in the computation of optimal levels of R&M. It provides criteria, guidelines, rationale, and formulae which the FAA is applying to its procurements in order to determine optimum mean-time-between failure (m.t.b.f., ¿) and mean-time-to-repair (m.t.t.r., ¿) design values for use in its hardware specification. The methodology is based upon LCC principles which are fully in accord with FAA needs.
