Diagnostics and maintenance testing-a case for relevancy

The authors advocate diagnostics and testing in a back to basics way by stressing the importance of establishing goals which are absolutely relevant to operational capabilities and constraints. The evolution of support methods and concepts resulted in the application of technology to diagnostics and testing without first establishing the operational relevancy for such support. The trend is insensitive to the fact that maintenance testing is not the primary mission of operational users and that ineffective testing can be more a liability than an asset to the mission. Without relevant objectives for support tasks, their development can be dominated by technical challenge. The result can be overly complex, ineffective support. The authors highlight a fundamental approach to design and diagnostics to select and balance maintenance tasks and optimize operational support