TABLE OF CONTENTS A system that is successful must achieve a balance between performance, support, and cost of ownership. Systems architecting and system engineering historically focused primarily on performance with cost of ownership being a secondary concern. Support was viewed as a requirement that could only be determined after the system was in operation. This philosophical view limited the consideration of support issues during system design and acquisition. Supportability engineering is responsible for ensuring that future support of a system and its cost of ownership receives the same importance during development and acquisition as performance. The traditional term for this activity is influencing design decisions to improve supportability and lower cost of ownership.
Supportability engineering activities are interwoven with those of reliability, maintainability, and testability. It is often difficult to determine where the actions of one discipline stop and another start. That is the way it should be. Producing a supportable system requires a joint effort by all organizations. They must work together as a team; each team member having a stated role in the overall objectives of the group. As stated previously, supportability is defined as follows.
Supportability. A prediction or measure of the characteristics of an item which facilitates the ability to support and sustain its mission capability within a predefined environment and usage profile.
For something to be predicted or measured, it must be intrinsically measurable. This is the core of the historical indifference given to future support of a system during its...
