Reliability And Maintainability Management

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

ABSTRACT

The exceedingly beneficial results of reliability and maintainability have increased the usage of its models and theories in almost all the aspects of life. In the past couple of decades, there was enormous growth in reliability and maintainability literature publication and implementations in the engineering as well as other fields. The essence of this theme is to achieve the most reliable systems at the minimal initial cost and also to optimize the functioning expenses. This leads to the field of reliability and maintainability management and its performance in engineering companies, plant, civil construction and other fields of technologies. Reliability and maintainability specialists take into account various management aspects, such as contracts, economics, value analysis, quality control, optimizing equipment repair facilities and many others, in order to produce more reliable and maintainable products at minimal cost.

The main theme of this report is to provide sufficient knowledge in light of the importance of management, in the area of reliability and maintainability. The increase involvement of management is essential to improve the system readiness and reliability as well as to lessen acquisition and operational costs. The best efforts are put together in order to provide the readers concise knowledge about the topic leading to the references for detail study and further research.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter 1 – Introduction (take help from chapter 2 and 3 of (Reliability and Maintainability Management)

Introduction to Reliability Engineering (Practical Reliability Engineering-Fifth Edition) chapter-1

History of Reliability and Maintainability (Reliability, Maintainability and Risk-Practical methods for engineers-8th edition) chapter-1

Thesis Arrangement

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

Section 1- Understanding Reliability and Maintainability Management

Reliability Management (Practical Reliability Engineering-Fifth Edition) chapter-17

Understanding Terms and Jargon (Reliability, Maintainability and Risk-Practical methods for engineers-8th edition) chapter-2

Cost effective approach to Reliability (Reliability, Maintainability and Risk-Practical methods for engineers-8th edition) Part-1

Maintainability Management (System Reliability, Maintainability Management) chapter-13

(Engineering Maintainability) chapter-2

Reliability Network, Reliability and Maintainability Measures

Some part to be added from chapter-3 "Introduction to Reliability and Maintainability" (Reliability and Maintainability Management)

Section 2- Reliability and Maintainability Mathematics (Reliability and Maintainability Management) chapter 2

System Reliability Maintainability and Management - chapter-2

(Practical Reliability Engineering-Fifth Edition) chapter-2

Differentiation, Integration and Quadratic Equations

Basic probability Theory

Intersection of Events

Conditional Probability

Exponential Distribution

Rayleigh Distribution

Weibull Distribution

Section 3- Predicting Reliability and Risk (Reliability, Maintainability and Risk-Practical methods for engineers-8th edition) chapter-7~10

Basic Reliability Prediction Theory

Methods of modeling

Quantifying the Reliability models

Risk Assessment

Section 4-Achieving Reliability and Maintainability

(Reliability, Maintainability and Risk-Practical methods for engineers-8th edition) chapter-11~17

Design and Assurance Technique

Design Review, Test and Reliability growth

Field Data collection and feedback

Factors Influencing Downtime

Predicting and demonstrating repair time

Quantified Reliability Centered maintenance

Systematic Failure

Section 5-Activities of Reliability and maintainability management

(Reliability and Maintainability Management) chapter 7

Section 6- Management tools for Reliability Management

(Reliability and Maintainability Management) chapter 9

Section 7- Maintainability, Maintenance and Availability

(Practical Reliability Engineering-Fifth Edition) chapter-16

Appendix -6 of the same book to be see for some parts addition in this section

Section 8- Reliability Availability and Maintainability

(Process Risk and Reliability Management) chapter-7

Section 9- Reliability and Maintainability Allocation

(System Reliability Maintainability and Management) chapter-17

Section 10- Reliability and Maintainability Data Collection and Analysis

(System Reliability Maintainability and Management) chapter-18

Chapter 3 – Conclusion & Recommendations

Chapter 4 – References

Chapter-1: Introduction

In recent years, the importance of reliability and maintainability in management field is growing due to factors such as system complexity, system sophistication, use of previously untried technology and many more. Any project that deals with reliability and maintainability requires that certain steps to be taken to achieve the desired results. The rapid growth and technological advancement in various fields require careful management consideration. These concepts are theories are utilized to reduce the cost factor and improve the systems reliability, which further results in making better management decisions. The resource management as well as the appropriate data regarding reliability and other aspects of the system is important for the management to drive results and make decisions accordingly. Life cycle costing and warranties are powerful tools which are in custody of management. These factors exhibited a major role in cost control management and reduction of unnecessary costs associated with the system in question.

Introduction to Reliability Engineering

The probability of occurrence of failure is predictable through the interpolation of statistical and historical data particular to the system maintenance and operation, despite of the fact that the failure actually occurs or not. Reliability is therefore an aspect of engineering uncertainty that whether an item will work for a particular period with considerable satisfaction.

This leads to the following definition of Reliability as:

"This is the probability that an item will perform a required function without failure under stated specified conditions for a stated period of time."

Reliability can also be expressed as the number of failures over a period of time. Durability is a particular aspect of reliability, related to the ability of an item to withstand the effects of time (or of distance travelled, operating cycles, etc.) dependent mechanisms such as fatigue, wear, corrosion, electrical parameter change. Durability is usually expressed as a minimum time before the occurrence of wear out failures. In repairable systems it often characterizes the ability of the product to function after repairs.

The main objectives of reliability engineering, in the order of priority, are:

To apply engineering knowledge and specialist techniques to prevent or to reduce the likelihood or frequency of failures.

To identify and correct the causes of failures that does occur, despite the efforts to prevent them.

To determine ways of coping with failures that does occur, if their causes have not been corrected.

To apply methods for estimating the likely reliability of new designs, and for analysing reliability data.

In order to produce highly reliable systems and products certain steps are mandatory to take into consideration which mainly comprise of reliability and maintainability of the item over the life cycle. Competition, the pressure of schedules and deadlines, the cost of failures, the rapid evolution of new materials, methods and complex systems, the need to reduce product costs, and safety considerations all are the factors which increase the risks of product development. The figure illustrates the pressures that lead to the overall perception of risk. Reliability engineering has developed in response to the need to control these risks.

Figure: Perception of Risk

History of Reliability and Maintainability

Reliability and maintainability are not developed as a unified discipline but grew out of the integration of a number of activities and of various branches of engineering. As no human activity can be risk free and no equipment has a zero rate of failure, this leads to the need for items to be more reliable by taking into account all the aspects to enhance system reliability. In addition, reliability engineering, beginning in the design phase, attempts to select the design that balances the cost of reducing failure rates against the value of the enhanced performance.

Reliability and maintainability history goes back to the probability concepts to problems associated with electric power generation as in 1930. The real advent in this field is considered to be the World war-II when these concepts are implemented to make rockets more reliable. The end of war initiated various military related reliability studies to ensure more reliable systems and products. The result of these studies reveals drastic news which gave birth to the establishment of hoc committee in 1950 by the United States Department of Defence. This committee later become a permanent group known as the Advisory Group on the Reliability of Electronic Equipment (AGREE). As a result of the awareness of the reliability problems during and after world war-II, equipment maintainability has also been receiving a significant attention. In 1959 and afterwards, various documents like maintainability program requirement, maintainability demonstration, maintainability prediction, maintainability guide for designers, were published regarding the growing concern and importance of maintainability.

Thesis Arrangement

This thesis report is spread into three main chapters consisting of several topics mainly related to the reliability and maintainability management and their implementation in industry for the purpose of making system more reliable and working in excellent condition to meet desired performance objectives. The preliminary chapter gives information about the introduction, the background of the report followed by the objectives.

The next chapter gives the literature study and review that comprise of different sections. The first section mainly describes the understanding about the report, which is the terms and jargons regarding reliability and maintainability field and the corresponding effective measures. The second section is on reliability and maintainability mathematics, the basic probability theories and subsequent distributions regarding the topic.

The idea explained in section 3 and section 4 is regarding prediction of reliability and risk, methods of modeling and risk assessment. Furthermore, the design and assurance techniques, field data collection and feedback and various factors are explained in line with the thesis requirements.

The remaining sections covers areas like, how to achieve reliability and maintainability, which are the management tools to be applicable and beneficial, reliability and maintainability data collection and allocation, in order to obtain a better understanding of the title at the initial stage. This chapter shows light on the effective use of reliability and maintainability concepts and theories in the industry.

The last chapter covers the results, conclusions and findings of this study report.

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

Section 1- Understanding Reliability and Maintainability Management

Reliability Management