R&M and supportability analysis integration into conceptual and preliminary weapon system design phases

Two projects are reviewed with emphasis on the development and integration of reliability, maintainability and supportability (RM&S) analysis software tools for the preliminary design stages. The aim of the first project is to automate and integrate analysis algorithms into the ACADS (advanced computer aided design system) software used in the preliminary weapon system stage. The second project´s objective is to design and prototype an integrated product development (IPD) workstation to be used by RM&S engineers on a number of advanced weapon system programs. This workstation incorporates computer-aided design (CAD) drawing file interfaces and RM&S analysis tools in a concurrent engineering environment