Vehicle Enterprise Computational Reliability Software (ECRS)

As the Army’s current fielded ground combat and combat support systems continue to age, there are increasing performance and reliability issues being encountered by our troops. Vehicles and equipment once designed using the best practices available at the time, can now be better engineered through state-of-the-art computational processing through coupling of engineering, business and maintenance systems. The proposed solution is the development of Enterprise Computational Reliability Software (ERCS) as a revolutionary new business process within the Army and its industrial base that will enable improved readiness forecasting, accelerated product development, and enable a new acquisition mindset for considering reliability forecasts as well as cost bids in vendor selection. Within the conventional engineering environment, the product designer selects the individual components that make up the product system. ERCS accesses component variability information from connected databases and performs many virtual representations of product functioning even considering sales schedules, maintenance strategies and varying usage scenarios. The results are viewed at the design level so that engineering and cost trade studies can be performed before final design while prime contractor and Army leadership monitor design progress to ensure that all objectives are met.