Designing Complex Systems

Expanding the Irreducible Element n 123

e element also takes into account the cost of failure. e cost of a single fail-

ure, COF, is a dependency, as is the MTBF, and they are combined by defining a

total cost of failure as the COF times the ratio of l

3

to MTBF, and then spreading

this cost evenly over l

3

, as it is not known when the failures will actually occur.

is element has only one functional parameter:

System cost C

e dependencies of this element are:

e fourteen elements of the cost matrix C

ij

e four components of the life cycle vector l

j

e cost of failure COF

e mean time between failure MTBF

ere is one influence:

Disc