A management information system for product maintainability improvement

Maintainability is an important design character of product. How to improve the product´s maintainability at design stage can reduce or eliminate maintenance costs, reduce downtime, and improve safety. In this paper, a virtual reality based on information management system for product maintainability improvement during design process is developed. The system aims at providing a simulated environment and concurrent engineering processes to facilitate communication, coordination, control and integration of product maintainability validation and improvement activities. The result of this research will help increase product maintainability, reduce development cycle time and cost, and hence increase product marketability.