Model based standards for diagnostic and maintenance information integration

There is no doubt that system complexity is increasing. There are a number of ramifications of this increase in complexity, besides higher performance. On one hand conventional means of testing are being overwhelmed by the complexity. On the other there are more sources of information about the system. System data is fragmented by time and discipline. Early design data is not available during the operational phase. Design data is often segregated from test data. Even within a particular discipline, e.g. diagnostics, data is fragmented. Few diagnostic reasoners can exchange data. One approach to dealing with the complexity issues is to integrate these sources of information into a single picture of the state of the system. This is the approach taken by the SCC20 Diagnostic and Maintenance Control (DMC) subcommittee. The DMC is developing a family of standards that are product information exchange standards for test, diagnosis, and maintenance. This paper describes the current efforts by the DMC to integrate data from a wide range of sources into a "picture" of the diagnostic and maintenance state of a system.