ALD Services provide Aircraft Type Certification Solutions

Sukhoi Superjet 100 Received Feb 3^rd 2012, EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) Type Certification approval.

 ALD Reliability and Safety Engineers took a significant role along side SCAC engineers towards SSJ 100 type certification.

Sukhoi Superjet 100 inspections by EASA experts have been started at Blagnac airport in Toulouse as a part of validation of IAC AR Type Certificate procedure.

The EASA certification process commenced in June 2011, following SSJ 100 certification by the Russian Civil Aviation Authority.

During the certification process 15 flight tests were performed with participation of EASA pilots. ALD participated in numerous reviews with EASA inspectors and SCAC engineers, defending and prove SSJ 100 safety and Airworthiness which paved the path to the awarding of EASA type certification for SSJ 100.

ALD Solutions plays a significant role in Sukhoi / Alenia activities towards innovative after sale support of SSJ 100, by supplying state of the art fleet safety and reliability monitoring system.

According to JSC Sukhoi Civil Aircraft First Vice-President for design and certification Igor Vinogradov,  “EASA certification was a top priority milestone for the entire SSJ100 program and partners. During 2012 SuperJet International is going to start the deliveries to the Mexican customer – Interjet airlines, and with great anticipation that the European certification will boost the SSJ100 backlog growth in the international markets.

Reliability Prediction & Analysis Software

January, 2012 ALD Software announces the release of the new version of its Reliability & Safety Software tool – RAM Commander version 8.2. For reliability engineers the new version provides the latest reliability prediction methods FIDES Guide 2009 issue A, improved Component Library – contains more than 410,000 components, Improved Search in the Component Library, Active Directory Authentication using LDAP The new version also provides many improvements and new features in the Reliability prediction module, Safety module, FMECA, FTA, MARKOV, MMEL, P&D FMEA, MSG-3. A long list of improvements and new features includes also, Context-Sensitive Help by F1 linked to the new User Manual, Report Generator – Calculated fields, improved NPRD-95, import/export Component / FB linkage for specific assembly and more. For IT personnel the new version provides much more convenient upgrade procedure – no more workstations upgrade, you just need to perform an upgrade on the server and all the connected workstations will be upgraded automatically on the first run. The new version comes also with completely rewrittened and updated User Manual, available in different formats – PDF, CHM and HTML online. For client-server installation – see User Manual – Installation Guide (Getting Started Chapter). Download the latest version of RAM Commander V8.2 (November 2011)

Reliability Engineering

What is Reliability Engineering?Reliability engineering is the function of analyzing the expected or actual reliability of a product, process or service, and identifying the actions to reduce failures or mitigate their effects. Engineers analyzing reliability typically carry out reliability predictions, FMEA or FMECA, design testing programs, monitor and analyze field failures, and suggest design or manufacturing changes. The overall goal of reliability engineeringis to make your product more reliable in order to reduce repairs, lower costs, and to maintain your company’s reputation. To meet this goal best, reliability engineering should be done at all levels of design and production, with all engineers involved.ALD presents an integrated approach to reliability engineering. Look at our Reliability Engineering Services to learn more how ALD can help you achieve your goal of creating a more reliable and cost-effective product or service. RAMS Software: RAM Commander RAM Commander is the pioneering Reliability and Safety software for reliability professionals and design engineers. RAM Commander combines ingenuity of approach, calculation accuracy, convenience of use. Designed by reliability engineers, RAM Commander covers the entire scope of engineering tasks related to reliability of electronic, electro-mechanical and mechanical systems. RAM Commander is modular software allowing a customer the flexibility of gradual addition of the modules to the package in accordance with the requirements of a project or the budget constraints. List of RAM Commander modules contains Reliability, Maintainability, RBD, Fault Tree Analysis, Event Tree Analysis, Safety Assessment, Spare Parts optimization, Derating, FMECA and Testability Analysis, Process&Design FMEA and more. Download Reliability Prediction Software RAM COMMANDER Download Free MTBF Calculator

RAM Commander 8.1 Released

ALD Software has released the new version of its Reliability&Safety Software tool – RAM Commander version 8.1.

For reliability engineers the new version provides the latest reliability precition methods FIDES Guide 2009 and Chinese GJB 299C, updated component reliability data libraries, and also Weibull module for mechanical equipment failure statistics data analysis and prediction. GPRD module now supports high and negative temperatures and linear FR(t) extrapolation/interpolation for  mechanical equipment.

The new version also provides many improvements in the Safety module, including support for SHA/O&SHA according to MIL-STD-882D and much more convenient Probabilistic Safety Assessment using Fault Trees for SAE-ARP-4761.

A long list of improvements and new features includes also Aircraft Dispath Reliability module, Common Cause Failures in FTA module, Severity/Likelyhood matrix in FMEA module and more. Student version of RAM Commander 8.1 is now available for educational purposes.

For IT personnel the new version provides much more convenient upgrade procedure – no more workstations upgrade, you just need to perform an upgrade on the server and all the connected workstations will be upgraded automatically on the first run.

The new version comes also with completely rewrited and updated User Manual, available in different formats – PDF, CHM and HTML online.

RAM Commander 8.1 is available for download from ALD Reliability & Safety Software website.

ALD Reliability Software Overview Video

ALD Reliability and Safety Software company has released a new inroductory video to RAM Commander software:

Video is a short (5+ minutes) demonstration of software capabilities, including reliability prediction (MIL-STD-217, FIDES 2009, NPRD-95 etc.), Maintainability prediction, FMECA, FTA, ETA, FMEA, Safety Assessment (SAE ARP 4761 and MIL-STD-882), MMEL, MSG-3 and more.

FIDES 2009 Software

ALD Reliability Software RAM Commander 8.0 Service Pack 1 released recently includes FIDES Guide 2009 prediction method.

The FIDES Guide 2009 was produced by companies in the FIDES Group, under the supervision of the DGA.

The FIDES Group is composed of AIRBUS France, Eurocopter, Nexter Electronics, MBDA France, Thales Systemes Aeroportes SA, Thales Avionics, Thales Corporate Services SAS and Thales Underwater Systems.

This document replaces the FIDES Guide 2004 issue A (also published by the UTE under reference UTE-C 80811). This update was made in order to take into account the technological developments, to increase the coverage and to make improvements. A guiding principle of these changes was to achieve a document which use is as practical and universal as possible. All the chapters of the document are revised.

RAM Commander 8.0 SP1 contains now both FIDES Guide 2004 and FIDES Guide 2009 Part Stress methods.

Customers under valid maintenance agreement having FIDES 2004 may apply for free upgrade to FIDES Guide 2009.

RAM Commander 8.0 is Released

New version of ALD Reliability&Safety Software is released – RAM Commander 8.0.

The new version provides a completely new look, MSG-3 module, reports generation using customizable MS-Word templates, many FTA module enhancements, updated component library and more:

RAM Commander 8.0 new look

Safety module contains new FHA, SSA, SARS, AFO reports by MS Word templates. Safety database may be now imported and exported from MS Excel.

RAM Commander 8.0 is tested for and is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7 – for both 32-bit and 64-bit processors.

The latest version may be downloaded from ALD Reliability&Safety Software website.

New article on Reliability vs. Safety

New article about differrences between Reliability, Availability, Safety and Security is published by Dr.Zigmund Blivband, ALD Reliability and Safety Solutions founder - Risk-Related factors: Reliability, Safety, Security. The article gives clear definitions to the terms and explains differences between them.

Good Reading on Reliability Prediction

Almost every customer starting with our reliability software asks a question: which reliability prediction method should be used? There are more than 25 prediction standards, and it is not an easy choice. For mechanical equipment the choise is not so wide, and there are some national standards, but still a number of internationally accepted stabdards is too large and there are conceptual differences between them.

Different standards use different prediction approaches and models; some standard use mathematical models with different factor calculation, some standards are just libraries with collected and processed reliability statistics for different component types and environment conditions (like NPRD-95 and EPRD). Different prediction methods give different results calculating failure rate of the same component. Experienced reliability engineers already know which methods give optimistic or pessimistic results in specific conditons and for specific element types. RAM Commander allows performing prediction using different methods for different devices, so that user could select MIL-217 for capacitors and FIDES for active devices.

We’ve found a great overview of existing reliability prediction standards and approaches written by Michal Vintr from Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic: Tools for Reliability Prediction of Systems. Article gives information about the most popular international prediction methods – from MIL-217 and NPRD-95 to FIDES and 217Plus. Recomended short reading for everybody working with reliability prediction.

ALD Free MTBF Calculator

ALD Reliability Software decided to create a “little brother” of its comprehensive Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety Toolkit called RAM Commander and release a free reliability prediction tool.

The new tool encapsulates reliability prediction functionality of RAM Commander and is called “MTBF Calculator”:

Free MTBF Calculator by ALD

It supports all the reliability prediction standards for electronic and mechanical equipment which are supported by the RAM Commander – MIL-217, Siemens Norm, FIDES, Telcordia, Bellcore and more.

The new tool will be provided free of charge. It was released last week and is available for free download for everybody from the ALD website: http://www.aldservice.com/en/reliability-software/free-mtbf-calculator.html

Installation instructions are also available. Although the new tool is provided as-is without techincal support, we will improve and maintain it. Please feel free to tell us what you think about the tool on this blog.