A customer-oriented approach to optimizing reliability-allocation within a set of weapon-system requirements

A systems engineering approach to weapon system requirements allocation demands that all system level performance requirements, including reliability, be flowed down and allocated to lower-level sub functions using a logical, structured methodology. Normally it is not in the customer's best interest to contractually specify MTBF design parameters developed from system requirements because such action borders on dictating hardware design solutions instead of focusing on communicating customer overall needs and desires to the development agency. Because of this, the requirements flowdown process appears to offer opportunities for multiple feasible solutions, all of which are capable of meeting the customer's top level requirements.