scope:

GENERAL

In order to achieve high operational effectiveness with low life cycle cost the Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) of defence materiel should be given full consideration at all stages of the procurement cycle. This process should begin at the concept stage of the project and be continued, in a disciplined manner, as an integral part of the design, development, production and testing process and subsequently into service.

This ARMP provides guidance on writing R&M requirement documents during the life cycle of a project using the NATO PHASED ARMAMENTS PROGRAMMING SYSTEM (NATO PAPS) as a framework.

This document also contains the necessary information and advice to write quantitative reliability and maintainability requirements, and availability and risk requirements which are derived therefrom.

PURPOSE

Realistic R&M requirements should be stated properly and consistently in each milestone of the NATO PAPS. The purpose of this document is to:

a. Describe the concepts and factors affecting the formulation of R&M requirements to assist operational requirements staff to define the basic R&M requirements, and the procurement agency to convert these requirements into contractually agreed specifications.

b. Describe a framework for the development of the R&M content of each PAPS milestone.

APPLICABILITY

This document applies to all materiel developed for use by NATO. It complements ARMP-1 by providing guidance for writing R&M requirements documents. ARMP-4 deals mainly with quantitative R&M requirements, whereas ARMP-1 deals with the requirements for R&M programmes.