This module can only be taken as part of the Vehicle and Weapon Engineering (USA) MSc.

The course will examine the fundamental factors which influence the availability, reliability and support of defence equipment. You will consider current practices and standards for the development of system concepts and requirements for engineering of military systems.

At a glance

  • Dates
    • Please enquire for course dates
  • Duration5 days
  • LocationExternal

What you will learn

To gain an understanding of the reliability and system effectiveness in relation to the defence industry. You will be able to demonstrate the application of reliability, maintainability and supportability methods to existing military equipment and identify their influence on equipment availability. Knowledge gained can be applied to purchasers of new defence equipment or the designers of new defence equipment.

Core content

The material covered includes:

  • define the terms reliability, maintainability and supportability,
  • the application of reliability, maintainability and supportability to existing military systems and identify their influence on equipment availability,
  • judge the reliability, maintainability and supportability techniques used during the concept, design, development, demonstration, production and trials,
  • reliability and maintainability case,
  • current and novel probabilistic measures of reliability and maintainability,
  • combining reliability and maintainability to achieve availability,
  • MOD methods and procedures for assured delivery of availability, reliability and maintainability,
  • lifecycle reliability, e.g. the bathtub curve,
  • estimating system reliability using such tools as fault tree analysis,
  • analysing redundancy using such tools as reliability block diagrams,
  • maintenance strategies,
  • reliability centred maintenance,
  • ILS tools,
  • health and usage monitoring,
  • prognostics.

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Who should attend

Suitable for those in defence industry, including the Ministry of Defence employees, overseas military and industry, designers and procurers of defence equipment. Suitable for design engineers and systems engineers.

Location and travel


Read our Professional development (CPD) booking conditions.