SAE TAHB0009A

This Handbook provides “how to” guidance to industry and government for the reliability Activities and Methods contained in GEIASTD0009 for developing reliable products and systems, successfully demonstrating them during test and evaluation, and sustaining them throughout the system/product life cycle. GEIASTD0009 requires the developers and customer/users working as a team to plan and implement a reliability program that provides systems/products that satisfy the user’s requirements and expectations using a systems engineering approach. The four Objectives of GEIASTD0009 are listed below: Objective 1: Understand customer/user requirements and constraints. The team (developer, customer, and user) includes the Activities necessary to ensure that the user’s requirements and product needs are fully understood and defined, so that a comprehensive design specification and Reliability program plan are generated. Objective 2: Design and redesign for reliability. The developer implements a set of engineering Activities so that the resulting system/product satisfies the customer’s documented requirements and needs. Objective 3: Produce reliable systems/products. The developer performs the Activities that assure the customer that the reliability requirements and product needs have been satisfied. Objective 4: Monitor and assess user reliability. The team establishes a closed-loop feedback Method for continuous monitoring of reliability trends and incorporation of recommended improvements (corrective actions). GEIASTD0009 and this Handbook define a systematic approach to engineering a system/product, incorporating best practices that have evolved considerably in recent years. Figure 1 shows the four Objectives, defined in 1.4.2 of GEIASTD0009, and is a defense industry example of the interaction of the Objectives, supporting Activities and Methods, and strategies for reliable system design in the acquisition cycle. The four Objectives in GEIASTD0009 have Activities associated with them. These Activities are further developed in this Handbook as shown in Figure 2. The four Objectives of the standard are shown on the left and the derived Activities in the Handbook are on the right. With the cancellation in 1998 of MIL-STD-785B, the government has not provided a suitable reliability standard that includes reliability management practices and reliability design and testing Activities that its customers want developers to propose. To restore and enhance the ability of government contracting authorities to contract for reliability, GEIASTD0009 was developed by incorporating and aligning with best practices, without prescriptively defining the reliability tasks or Methods to be performed. This orientation made developers equal partners in deciding which reliability Methods are applicable and resulted in the release of GEIASTD0009 on November 13, 2008, and its subsequent adoption for voluntary use by the Department of Defense on August 20, 2009.