Design Support System

A design support system comprising:

• a designer terminal used by designers;
• a maintenance personnel terminal used by maintenance personnel;
• and
• a design support device capable of communicating with the designer terminal and the maintenance personnel terminal, wherein
• the design support device includes
• a failure causal model database that stores a failure causal model of a target equipment,
• a failure causal model updating unit that updates the failure causal model based on an assumed cause of the failure of the target equipment input from the designer terminal,
• a maintenance support unit that estimates a type of a failure having a high occurrence probability and the cause thereof based on a symptom of the target equipment input from the maintenance personnel terminal and the failure causal model, and outputs the estimated result to the maintenance personnel terminal,
• a maintenance record database that stores, as a maintenance record, authenticity information input from the maintenance personnel terminal for the type of the failure and the cause thereof estimated by the maintenance support unit, and
• a failure cause analysis unit that updates the failure causal model based on the authenticity information stored as the maintenance record in the maintenance record database, estimates a failure cause of the target equipment based on the updated failure causal model, and outputs the estimated result to the designer terminal.