The AMSAA (Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity) developed reliability growth planning methodology allows the feasibility of achieving a requirement to be assessed, given program schedules, amount of testing, and resource constraints. The model uses historical values for parameters, such as growth rate. The analysis performs trade-offs between test time, initial reliability, confidence levels, requirements, etc. to develop an achievable solution. The planning is quantified and reflected in the construction of a reliability growth program plan curve which establishes interim reliability goals throughout the program.
Planning Model based on Projection Methodology (PM2) Continuous - The purpose of PM2 Continuous is to develop a system-level reliability growth planning curve that incorporates the developmental test schedule and corrective action strategy. The planning curve and associated steps serve as a baseline which reliability assessments may be compared against, possibly highlighting the need for reallocation of resources. Unlike the AMSAA Crow Planning Model, the PM2 Continuous model does not have a growth rate parameter, nor is there a comparable quantity. Furthermore, PM2 Continuous utilizes planning parameters that are directly influenced by program management, which include:
- MI , the planned initial system MTBF;
- MS, the Management Strategy, which is the fraction of the initial failure rate addressable via corrective action;
- MG, the MTBF goal for the system to achieve at the conclusion of the reliability growth test;
- μd, the planned average FEF of corrective actions;
- T, the duration of developmental testing; and
- the average lag time associated with corrective actions.
Planning Model based on Projection Methodology (PM2) Discrete - PM2-Discrete is the first methodology specifically developed for discrete systems and is also the first quantitative method available for formulating detailed plans in the discrete usage domain. The model has the same conditions of use as the continuous PM2 model, except for the usage domain. PM2-Discrete utilizes planning parameters that are directly influenced by program management, which include:
- RI, the planned initial system reliability;
- MS, the Management Strategy, which in the discrete case is a value between 0 and 1 that decomposes RI into the factors RA and RB (which are defined below);
- RG, the goal reliability for the system to achieve at the conclusion of the reliability growth test;
- μd, the planned average FEF of corrective actions;
- T, the duration of developmental testing; and
- average delay associated with corrective actions
