Book excerpt: Gets professionals quickly on-line with all the crucial designconcepts and skills they need to dramatically improve themaintainability of their products or systems Maintainability is a practical, step-by-step guide to implementinga comprehensive maintainability program within your organization'sdesign and development function. From program scheduling,organizational interfacing, cost estimating, and supplieractivities, to maintainability prediction, task analysis, formaldesign review, and maintainability tests and demonstrations, itdescribes all the planning and organizational aspects ofmaintainability for projects under development and * Schools readers in state-of-the-art maintainability designtechniques * Demonstrates methods for quantitatively measuring maintainabilityat every stage of the development process * Shows how to increase effectiveness while reducing life-cyclecosts of already existing systems or products * Features numerous case studies, sample applications, and practiceexercises * Functions equally well as a professional reference and aclassroom text Independent cost analysis studies indicate that an inordinatelylarge percentage of the overall life-cycle cost of mostsystems/products is currently taken up by maintenance and support.In fact, for many large-scale systems, maintenance and support havebeen shown to account for as much as 60% to 75% of overalllife-cycle costs. At a time of fierce global competition, long-termcost effectiveness is a major competitive advantage thatmanufacturers simply cannot afford to underestimate. Clearly then,to remain competitive in today's international marketplace,companies must institute programs for reducing system maintenanceand support costs-- comprehensive programs that are an integralpart of the design and development process from its earliestconceptual stages. This book shows you how to implement such a program within yourorganization's design and development function. From programscheduling, organizational interfacing, cost estimating, andsupplier activities, to maintainability prediction, task analysis,formal design review, and maintainability tests and demonstrations,it describes all the planning and organizational aspects ofmaintainability for projects under development while schooling youin the use of the full range of proven design techniques--includingmethods for quantitatively measuring maintainability at every stageof the development process. The authors also clearly explain howthe principles and practices outlined in Maintainability can beapplied to the evaluation of systems/products now in use both toincrease their effectiveness and reduce long-term costs. While theoretical aspects of maintainability are discussed, theauthors' main purpose in writing this book is to help getprofessionals quickly on-line with the essential maintainabilityconcepts and skills. Hence, in addition to clarity of presentationand a rational hierarchical format, Maintainability features manycase studies and sample applications that help to clarify thepoints covered, and numerous practice exercises that help engineersto test their mastery of the concepts and techniques covered. Maintainability is an invaluable professional tool for engineersfrom all disciplines who are involved with the design, testing,prototyping, manufacturing, and maintenance of products andsystems. It also serves as a superior course book forgraduate-level programs in those disciplines.