It is correct that MIL-HDBK-217F, Notice 2 is still active. I was not able to confirm where the DSPO Home Page indicated that it was canceled.
When Rome Laboratory ceased to become the Preparing Activity for MIL-HDBK-217 (mid-1990’s) and no other organization picked up responsibility for it (i.e., “[COLOR=”RoyalBlue”]abandoned by the Government[/COLOR]“), the RAC (which became RIAC in June 2005) developed and released PRISM as a more realistic methodology. Under RIAC, additional component models were developed and incorporated into the old RAC PRISM software and released as the RIAC 217Plus methodology in 2006. The RIAC 217Plus methodology supersedes the old RAC PRISM methodology. The 217Plus methodology overcomes what RIAC has identified as major deficiencies in MIL-HDBK-217F, Notice 2, not the least of which is obsolescence.
In late-2007, the Defense Standardization Program Office received permission from OSD to have Navy Crane (the current MIL-HDBK-217 Preparing Activity) update MIL-HDBK-217 to Revision G. RIAC is involved in this Working Group activity, as well as potential future plans for updating and maintaining the Handbook.
The RIAC 217Plus methodology was always intended to be an alternative to MIL-HDBK-217F, N2, not an authorized DoD replacement. As such, it has not superseded MIL-HDBK-217, but it can (and has) been used to reflect more realistic failure rate predictions.
The RIAC will continue to offer 217Plus as an alternative even after the planned release of MIL-HDBK-217G in December 2009. It is important to remember that MIL-HDBK-217 is a Handbook, not a Standard, so it cannot be contractually imposed (theoretically) by the Government. With customer concurrence, alternative methodologies such as RIAC’s 217Plus can be used as a more accurate method for performing reliability predictions.
