The performance of a product, a system or a service is usually judged in terms of dependability (which can be defined as an aggregate of quality, reliability, and maintainability etc.) and safety, not overlooking the cost of achieving these attributes. As of now, dependability and cost effectiveness are primarily seen as instruments for conducting the international trade in the free market environment and thereby deciding the economic prosperity of a nation. However, the internalization of the hidden costs of environment preservation will have to be accounted for, sooner or later, in order to be able to produce sustainable products in the long run. These factors cannot be considered in isolation of each other. The “Handbook of Performability Engineering” considers all aspects of performability engineering, providing a holistic view of the entire life cycle of activities of the product, along with the associated cost of environmental preservation at each stage, while maximizing the performance.
