There are two (2) general approaches to capturing the IVHM (or “ISHM”) design within the eXpress environment – either using a “Top-Down” or a “Bottom-Up” approach. In either approach, capturing the IVHM design in eXpress will enable the IVHM to be influenced for more inclusive and holistic “integrated systems” diagnostic capabilities that will continue to benefit both the operational run-time diagnostic capability of the IVHM and then continue into any off-board diagnostic paradigm throughout the sustainment lifecycle(s).

When designing for any diagnostic paradigm or any combinations of diagnostic paradigms, or most specifically when coordinating on-board operational run-time diagnostics (typically performed by Health Monitoring Systems and Health Management Systems by using on-board BIT sensing technologies) with off-board maintenance activities, the eXpress approach will facilitate the coordination, integration and cross-validation of the design assessment products from each design discipline.

The eXpress diagnostic modeling environment is essential for determining the diagnostic designs’ ability to “Uniquely Isolate” any failures (or loss of function). This capability, designated as “FUI” in eXpress, enables the assessment to determine if the design is able to isolate between the sensor and any of the functions contained on the object that is being sensed.

Traditionally, Built-in-Test (BIT) has been assigned to “test” the presence of the proper functioning at various “testing locations or points”. Such test points have often been selected by the designer or the manufacturer based upon their specific expertise or available resources. If a more careful effort was to be required, then the determining of the BIT would require additional tools, technologies, expertise and then additional resources – meaning more cost and time.

Within the eXpress and Integrated Systems Diagnostic Design (ISDD) environment, the assigning and managing of the Fault Codes for the BIT throughout the design development of the Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) for any on-board embedded diagnostic or Production Floor ATE application is a rather simple and error-free integrated process. To perform this seamless capability, the ancillary eXpress Maintenance Module is required.

The utility of the IVHM (Integrated Vehicle Health Management), ISHM (Integrated Systems Health Management), PHM (Prognostics Health Management) or of performing more traditional RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) design development processes can be greatly enriched by initially adopting a more inclusive and integrated design development tactic within the design development lifecycle. The use of using eXpress as a “diagnostic engineering” tactical method to design development process will unlock a robust “interdisciplinary diagnostic design data interchange segue” capable of creating and leveraging interdependent design data in a much grander scale.