Increasing Systems Resilience through the Implementation of a Proactive Technology Refreshment Program

Systems resilience has become a growing need and concern over the last decade. Systems are designed to meet requirements and maintain operational characteristics over long operational lives, frequently plagued with uncertainties regarding operational environments and profiles. Meeting requirements along is no longer sufficient. Resilience is the capability that systems have to mitigate the severity and the likelihood of failures or losses; that is, it is the system's capability for adapting to changing needs and conditions by responding appropriately to them. Systems have to exhibit such resilient capability but it is difficult to ensure it, in the face of so many uncertainties in the evolution of the needs, in the intended operational life and system utilization profile. Nevertheless, technology refreshment programs offer a valuable help to attain the so desired level of resilience. Through the continuous assessment of the evolution of the need or opportunity that triggered the design of the system, the monitoring of the performance of the system and the screening of new technologies and capabilities becoming available, technology refreshment programs allow for the performance of resilience-growth programs. This paper presents a detailed technology refreshment methodology and illustrates how through its application a resilience-growth program can be implemented and conducted during the entire operational life of a system.