~ RELIABILITY, MAINTAINABILITY & SAFETY ANALYSIS ~

Systems intended for use in aerospace, defense, and railroad must be properly analyzed to assure that the design is suitable for the intended use and the associated operating conditions.  Performance requirements such as the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and operating conditions, such as the temperature range, are normally stipulated in the Technical Specifications and Contracts.

Reliability Analysis
MIL-HDBK-217F Notice 2 Reliability Analysis. This is a handbook method that can be applied to electronic assemblies to predict the mean time between failure (MTBF) and Failures in Time (FIT).

Maintainability Analysis
Maintainability considers how Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) are replaced during maintenance, and the consequences of such replacement.

Safety Analysis
A safety analysis will consider the physical failure of components, as well as the procedural failure of the humans who are operating the system.

FMECA. Failure Modes Effects and Criticality Analysis. The failure of components is analyzed with respect to probability of occurence and the severity of the hazard.

FTA. Fault Tree Analysis. A Fault Tree considers events such as equipment failures, human actions, and environmental factors in levels of dependent events that are logically related. Usually, only events that can cause serious injury or death are considered. The lowest level events in the Fault Tree are called Basic Events.

OHA. Operating Hazard Analysis. This analysis considers the probability and severity of hazards caused by human action or inaction.

PHA. Potential Hazard Analysis. This analysis considers the occurence of the Basic Events.