A risk based methodology for managing material/product life cycle disruptions

A product design methodology is introduced to manage material and product life cycle disruptions and provides an integrated strategic risk management approach. This leads to a reduction in the number of design iterations caused by disruptive events. The methodology considers material risk, product risk, and reliability risk early in the design cycle as specified by IEEE 1332. The level of risk, as a metric, allows a designer to best select a component for a product design without needing access to sensitive corporate information. Knowledge base techniques are used when there is incomplete supplier and/or reliability information. Reliability analysis tools (e.g. 217Plus models and physics of failure models) are also used to support the knowledge base. Examples for determining component life cycle risk and reliability risk are provided.