The Department of the Army's announcement of the Army Futures Command (AFC) and the establishment of Cross Functional Teams (CFTs) exemplifies the importance of developing rapid and feasible system requirements and capability documents. Implementing model-based engineering (MBE) early in the design process and integrating physics-based design principles can provide large tradespaces for analysis of alternatives (AoA) to support this effort. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) developed TradeBuilder, a web-based tradespace analytical tool as part of the Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) suite of tools to enable more informed assessments. In support of Pre-Milestone A tradespace analysis, ERDC collaborated with the Army Materiel System Analysis Activity (AMSAA) to enhance the analytical tool capabilities in this area. This paper explored the integration of AMSAA's Physics-based Reliability (PBR) methodology and aspects of reliability into TradeBuilder with linkage to a physics-based notional helicopter model and a notional cost model. These methodologies leveraged system block diagrams, physics-based models, existing reliability data (test/field), and engineering analysis information. The introduction of these assessments based on historical data into the tradespace allowed reliability information to be available for guiding engineering design decisions. Displaying the impact of reliability (MTBMA) upon sustainment cost was demonstrated in tradespace visualization. The possible alternatives provide the ability to quickly convey the impact of reliability influenced design decisions and could easily be made available to key decision makers. AMSAA's reliability methodologies combined with the TradeBuilder tool can support current/future AoA studies, reliability requirement reviews, technology assessments, Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analyses, and reliability testing. AMSAA has reviewed the data sampling & requirements analysis capabilities of the tool and assessed the integration of reliability growth tools and tradespace optimization models into analytical tools such as TradeBuilder. Ongoing collaboration potential could include development of a reliability module within the ERS architecture that is suitable for a wide variety of Department of Defense (DoD) systems. Future research should continue to improve the capabilities within the integrated TradeBuilder framework in order to provide higher fidelity information to decision makers. Additionally, research should continue to improve the accuracy of the cost model by increasing the linkage of reliability factors while incorporating subcomponent cost level analysis.
