How we put reliability tools into the hands of designers

The managerial issues encountered during the development of FRATOOLS, a computerized methodology for performing failure rate analysis, are described. FRATOOLS was developed inhouse because a tool was needed for performing failure rate analysis in a concurrent engineering environment. No suitable commercial software or shareware could be found which adequately supports concurrent engineering. FRATOOLS consists of several stand-alone programs integrated together to work as a single software package. The FRATOOLS methodology complies with the methods contained in Mil-Hdbk-217E. Some of the novel elements of FRATOOLS include the use of smart software for automating the decision-making process, capability to compute the failure rates for advanced technology devices, and integrating the methodology with the design process in a manner which fully supports concurrency in the design of radar systems