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
