| Abstract: | Although industry is expected to design hardware to fit into a general support system and to be capable of arguing life-cycle system costs, adequate information has not been available on the support system in terms of policies and operating decision rules. Policies and operating decisions by users dominate engineering design decisions in determining life-cycle support costs. The relative effect of each of these decision areas on support costs has yet to be resolved empirically. Without an understanding of the sensitivity of support costs to alternative designs, capability is limited in design improvement and support of end items. Life-cycle costing of analysis under cost-effectiveness and the maintainability of integrated logistics support is open to question. |
