1. Introduction
Within the aerospace industry, customer demand for system dependability and Life
Cycle Cost (LCC) has increased. This has led to reliability requirements other than the
classic requirement of failure rate being imposed [1,2]. Examples of such requirements are
“power-by-the-hour” on the commercial side and Maintenance Free Operating Period
(MFOP) on the military side. These requirements are manifested by business solutions,
such as Performance-Based Logistics (PBL), where the supplier takes an increased
responsibility for the performance of the aircraft in its operational environment than
traditionally. This change is also driven by an increased complexity of the aircraft and its
support system, which makes it more difficult for the customer to keep the knowledge and
resources necessary to support the aircraft.
Though increasingly more complex systems also provides more advanced capabilities.
Fullington and Donaldson [3] argues that integration of health management to enhance
product support supports knowledge-based maintenance and customer support system,
and improves aircraft availability and cost efficiency through decreased delays and
advanced reliability analysis. A technological approach to support the PBL trend is the