Summary of Findings and Recommendations from the National Research Council Report on “reliability Growth: Enhancing Defense System Reliability�
Arthur Fries
Institute for Defense Analyses
W P. Cherry
Science Applications international Corporation
Robert G. Easterling
Cedar Crest
Elsayed A. Elsayed
Rutgers University
Aparna V. Huzurbazar
Los Alamos National Laboratory
P A. Jacobs
Naval Postgraduate School
W Q. Meeker Jr.
Iowa State University
N. Nagappan
Microsoft Research
M. Pecht
University of Maryland
A. Sen
University of Michigan
S V. Wiel
Los Alamos National Laboratory
C. Citro
The National Academies
M. L. Cohen
The National Academies
M. J. Siri
The National Academies
This paper summarizes the findings and recommendations from the Panel on Reliability Growth Methods for Defense Systems, operating under the Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council. The report offers recommendations to improve defense system reliability throughout the sequence of stages that comprise the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition processes - beginning with the articulation of requirements for new systems and ending with feedback mechanisms that document the reliability experience of deployed systems. A number of these recommendations are partially or fully embraced by current DoD directives and practice, particularly with the advent of recent DoD initiatives that elevate the importance of design for reliability techniques, reliability growth testing, and formal reliability growth modeling. The report supports the many recent steps taken by DoD, building on these while addressing associated engineering and statistical issues. The report provides a self-contained rendition of reliability enhancement proposals, recognizing that current DoD guides and directives have not been fully absorbed or consistently applied and are subject to change.