Unlike previous handbooks which focused only on maintainability, this document provides information to help the reader view maintainability in the context of an overall systems engineering effort. The handbook defines maintainability, describes its relationship to other disciplines, addresses the basic elements common to all sound maintainability programs, describes the tasks and activities associated with those elements, and provides guidance in selecting those tasks and activities. Due to the many aspects of maintainability and the large number of related disciplines, the depth in which some topics are covered is necessarily limited. Table I summarizes where the scope of the coverage of key topics is limited. Whenever possible, references are given in the text to documents having more detailed information on a topic.

Table I - Scope of Key Topics

Topic	Scope Limited To
Availability and Readiness	Basic concepts, effect of maintainability
Life Cycle Costs	Basic definitions, description of effect of maintainability on various cost elements
Manufacturing	Description of impact of manufacturing on maintainability
Human Engineering	Description of human engineering discipline and relationship to maintainability
Safety	Description of relationship to maintainability
Testability	Definition as subset of maintainability, description of concepts, general information on key issues, design techniques and guidelines, definitions of metrics, and demonstration testing (Appendix B). Testability is covered in more detail in other handbooks and standards such as MIL-HDBK-2165
Logistics Support	General discussion with emphasis on how it is affected by maintainability
Reliability-centered Maintenance	Introduction with general procedure outlined
Predictions	Description of applications with the most used method from MIL-HDBK-472 included in Appendix D

This Appendix is for guidance only and cannot be cited as a requirement. If it is, the contractor does not have to comply.