Reliability, availability, maintainability and safety

This article is about reliability engineering. For other uses, see Rams (disambiguation).

In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety) is used to characterize a product or system:

• Reliability – as ability to perform a specific function and may be given as design reliability or operational reliability.
• Availability, – as ability to keep a functioning state in the given environment.
• Maintainability – as ability to be timely and easily maintained (including servicing, inspection and check, repair and/or modification).
• Safety – as ability not to harm people, the environment, or any assets during a whole life cycle.

See also

• Systems engineering
• Dependability
• Failure mode
• Failure rate
• Failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA)
• Hazard analysis and critical control points
• High availability
• Risk assessment
• Reliability-centered maintenance
• Safety instrumented system
• Safety integrity level
• Reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS)
• Fault injection