Two recommendations for the acquisition and growth of reliable systems

This paper presents two recommendations for improving the acquisition and growth of reliable systems that support the intent of DoDI 5000.02 and ANSI/GEIA-STD-0009: 1. During the proposal evaluation and selection process, use a metric based on a Historical Observed Reliability Ratio (HOR-R, pronounced ¿horror¿) of the potential supplier´s predicted or assessed reliability measure to its observed field reliability value. 2. Extend the definition of reliability growth A-Mode and B-Mode failures to include classifications of ¿Unanticipated Failure Mode¿ and ¿Unexpected Failure Mode¿. These two recommendations, and the corrective actions they initiate, provide benchmarks to improve both the effectiveness of acquisitions in reliability and life cycle cost risk avoidance, and the ability of DFR activities to proactively identify and mitigate failure modes prior to their more costly discovery during testing or field use.