Novel Vehicle and Fleet Reliability & Cost Modeling Tools

OEMs have historically been forced into short term planning due to the nature of the market for their products; however they have increasingly turned to a new agile approach to planning of design and production. Tools for the development and exploitation of capabilities need to be developed to be successful in a changing, nonlinear, uncertain and unpredictable environment. Specifically simulation and analysis of possible vehicle design performance and reliability in the various operating environments while considering cost trade-offs is a paramount need. The reliability of the final system is a function of the reliability of all of the parts, including interconnections between the parts. If component reliability is sufficiently understood, it becomes possible to mathematically model the contributions to overall system reliability from each of the lower level elements. This SBIR will build on the existing capability used within the automotive sector to develop the methodology and modeling tools for predicting reliability, performance, and cost of future military systems as integrated functions. Using such a tool, engineers, designers, and others could assess the real world effect of issues such as materials and manufacturing variability for concentrating design controls on parameters most likely to drive reliability and performance.