Availability - a quality characteristics
For economic and safety reasons it seems inevitable to define availability as a main material property

Unavailability of materials means much more than stress, worries and costs. If availability as a material characteristic gained more importance, then this would be the first step from corrective actions to the avoidance of failures – all in the line with the Total Quality Management required everywhere, as the following article describes.
For thousands of years, metallic materials have been companions of people and even founded cultures and civilizations. Due to their forming and strength properties they were predestined for the production of tools, weapons, building material and last but not least apparatus and machines. For economic and safety reasons it became necessary to exactly define the main properties of the materials and to make them reproducible. The current level of material standardization is a good example of what has been achieved. Strength properties are defined by static and dynamic values, forming characteristics are proved by numerous testing methods relating to each specific intended use of the material. The values for wear, corrosion or physical properties are standardized. It seems inevitable to add yet another material characteristic.