14. Enabling Support Solutions in the Defence Environment

Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS), Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM), Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) and Prognostic Health Management (PHM) are enablers for engineering and support planning and are not being exploited to their full potential in the military environment. This chapter explores the nature of the techniques and the challenges for their adoption in the military environment. It shows that there is a connection not only between engineering solutions that involve one or more of these techniques which aim to provide effective support solutions, but that there is also a compelling case for their adoption to improve operational availability to benefit both the user and those who provide support solutions. The chapter first reviews the nature of failure and the consequential need for maintenance. It then reviews the techniques of RCM and CBM before looking at the processes of HUMS and PHM. Operational availability and its constituent parts and enablers are not commonly understood by either the user community or the support solution provider. Consequently HUMS and Prognostics are not yet generally recognised as being able to improve operational availability and make support solutions more effective. The benefits of RCM and CBM on in-service equipments are likewise not being exploited fully.