Data & Tools Publications Training

What is it?

afford
Affordability is the extent to which something is affordable, as measured by its cost relative to the amount that the purchaser is able or willing to pay. It represents a conclusion drawn from an analysis of the “total life cycle cost” of a product/system that its purchase will cost-effectively meet the long term requirements of the customer.

What’s the payoff?

Afforadability analysis can help optimize total life cycle costs by minimizing the financial impacts of product/system rework, maintenance/support, warranty, and other related customer ownership costs.

How can we help?

  • Perform analyses to define realistic and achievable reliability requirements
  • Define a strategy that optimizes investment decisions for designing, testing and manufacturing suitably reliable and maintainable products/systems
  • Perform analyses to ensure that investments made during the design, development, test and end-use of a product/system have the desired effect on achieved operational reliability performance at an acceptable Return-on-Investment (ROI)
  • Provide training to ensure that an organization understands the impact of its decisions on overall product/system affordability objectives

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Related Data & Tools:

  • Warranty CalculatorThe Warranty Calculator planning and analysis tool provides automated calculations and comparisons for ten different warranty types in common use. The tool also includes data, information and references that provide further guidance for over 30 additional warranty types.
  • Optimized Reliability Requirements and Cost Analysis (OR2CA)Quanterion Solutions Incorporated has developed the Optimized Reliability Requirements and Cost Analysis (OR2CA) tool for one purpose: to present a methodology that develops contractual reliability requirements that are fully aligned with stated End-User Operational Reliability needs and expectations based on all of the categories of root failure cause that contribute to potential mission loss or degradation.
  • Total Life Cycle Cost Benefits Calculator for Root Cause Failure Analysis Decision-MakingThe purpose of this Workbook is to estimate the net total life cycle cost (TLCC) impact of performing root cause failure analysis and corrective action (CA) identification, implementation and verification to improve system, product, assembly, component, part or process reliability.
  • QuART PROThe QuART software series represents the fourth generation of the highly popular "Reliability Toolkit" series of RMQ engineering aids originated in 1988 by Quanterion personnel while working at the Rome Laboratory (formerly Rome Air Development Center).
  • QuART ER QuART ER (Enhancing Reliability)This 2011 release features over 2 dozen new or improved tools over QuART PRO. QuART ER updates more than 10 tools and adds more than 15 new tools to the tool set available in QuART PRO, including the "Ask a Quanterion Expert" function that allows users to direct their reliability questions to an ASQ certified reliability expert at Quanterion.

Related Publications:

  • The Influence of Reliability, Maintainability, Quality, Supportability and Interoperability on System AffordabilityThe relationship of R&M costs to the Sustainment and Availability Key Performance Parameters (KPPs), the Reliability and Ownership Cost Key System Attributes (KSAs) and the RAM-C Manual processes are discussed. The publication comes with a MS Excel-based tool titled "Optimized Reliability Requirements and Cost Analysis" (OR2CA), developed by Quanterion Solutions Incorporated, that automates the RAM-C process and incorporates three innovative ideas from the Authors presented in the publication.
  • Reliability: Costly, or Cost Effective?There are those who would argue that the costs of reliability activities associated with developing new products have little payoff. Whether we’re talking about commercial products or military systems, we don’t agree. Concepts like Life Cycle Costs, Total Ownership Costs, Reliability-based Maintenance, Performance-Based Logistics, and others clearly recognize the contribution of reliability activities in reducing…  Read More
  • Warranty Cost: An IntroductionWhether your company is marketing commercial products or selling to the Government, warranties are an important ingredient to competitive success. Effective warranty planning can ensure success, but lack of attention to cost analyses can spell disaster. This article is intended to introduce the basics of warranties and to identify sources for more information.
  • System Spares – What’s the “Right” Answer?Manufacturers are often faced with questions such as: How often will my system fail? How many spare parts should I stock? How confident am I that I will have enough spare parts?

Related Training:

Staff at the RMQSI Knowledge Center have provided many years of value-added consulting and training experience in the RMQ Engineering disciplines, to both commercial and government clients.  Browse through our website to learn more and contact us to see how we can develop and present customized training to your organization.