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Maintainability Analysis Tools Overview

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18 views2 pages

Maintainability Analysis Tools Overview

Uploaded by

chaizernbang
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© © All Rights Reserved
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4 Maintainability Analysis

At the equipment and system level, maintainability has a great influence on


reliability and availability. This is true if redundancy has been implemented and
redundant parts are repaired on line, i.e. without interruption of operation.
Maintainability represents thus an important parameter in the optimization of
availability and life-cycle cost. Achieving high maintainability, requires appropriate
activities which must be started early in the design and development phase,
and be coordinated by a maintenance concept. To this belong faults detection and
isolation (built-in tests), partitioning of the equipment or system into (almost)
independent last repairable units (spare parts at equipment or system level),
and logistical support, including after-sales service. A maintenance concept has to
be tailored to the equipment or system considered. After the introduction of basic
terms (Section 4.1), this chapter deals with a maintenance concept for complex
equipment and systems, and presents then methods and tools for maintainability
calculations. Models for spare part provisioning are considered in depth in Section
4.5. Design guidelines for maintainability are given in Section 5.2.

4.1 Maintenance, Maintainability

Maintenance defines all those activities performed on an item to retain it in or to


restore it to a specified state. Maintenance is thus subdivided into preventive
maintenance, carried out at predetermined intervals and according to prescribed
procedures, to reduce the probability of failures or the degradation of the functio-
nality of an item, and corrective maintenance, initiated after fault recognition and
intended to bring the item into a state in which it can again perform the required
function (Fig. 4.1). Corrective maintenance is also known as repair and can include
any or all of the following steps: localization, isolation, disassembly, exchange,
reassembly, alignment, checkout. The aim of preventive maintenance must also be
to detect and repair hidden failures, i.e. failures in redundant elements. The time

A. Birolini, Reliability Engineering


© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999
4.1 Maintenance, Maintainability 115

MAINTENANCE
I I
I
I I
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE
(retainment of the item functionality) (reestablishment of the item functionality)

• Test of all relevant functions, also to • Failure detection


detect hidden failures • Failure localization
• Activities to compensate for drift and • Failure elimination
to reduce wearout failures • Functional test
• Overhaul to increase useful life

Figure 4.1 Maintenance tasks (failure could also be replaced by fault, thus including both defects
and failures)

elapsed from the recognition of a failure until the final test after failure elimination,
including all logistical delays (waiting for spare parts or for tools) is the repair time.
Often, ideal logistical support with no logistical delay is assumed.
Maintainability is a characteristic of an item, expressed by the probability that
preventive maintenance (serviceability) or repair (repairability) of the item will
be performed within a stated time interval by given procedures and resources
(number and skill level of the personnel, spare parts, test facilities, etc.). If r: and
't" are the (random) times required to carry out a repair or for a preventive
maintenance, respectively, then
,
Repairability = Pr{'t ~ t} and Serviceability = Pr{'t ~ t}. (4.1)

For a rough characterization, the expected values (means) of 't' and 't"

E['t' ] = MITR = mean time to repair

E['t"] = MITPM = mean time to preventive maintenance


can often be used. Assuming t as a parameter, Eq. (4.1) gives the distribution
functions of 't' and 't". These distribution functions characterize the repairability
and the serviceability of the item considered, respectively. Experience shows that
't' and 't" often exhibit a lognormal distribution as defined by Eq. (A6.11O).
The typical shape of the corresponding density is shown in Fig. 4.2. A characteristic
of the lognormal density is the sudden increase after a period of time in which its
value is practically zero, and the relatively fast decrease after reaching the

Common questions

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Maintainability influences spare part provisioning models by determining the ease and speed with which maintenance activities can restore or retain equipment functionality. Effective maintainability can lead to optimized spare part provisioning, as it anticipates parts requirements and minimizes logistical delays, ensuring parts are available to perform needed maintenance without significant downtimes .

Preventive maintenance can detect hidden failures in redundant elements through comprehensive testing of all relevant functions, which can reveal failures that are not immediately apparent during normal operation. This detection is important as it ensures that redundancy fulfills its intended purpose of providing continuous operation by verifying that backup systems are ready to take over in case of primary system failure .

The implementation of redundancy in systems significantly influences maintainability and availability by allowing for the repair of parts without interrupting operations, thus enhancing overall system reliability and availability . Corrective maintenance plays a crucial role in this context as it involves steps such as localization, isolation, disassembly, and reassembly to restore functionality after a failure, particularly in redundant elements, thereby maintaining continuous operation and optimizing life-cycle costs .

MITR and MITPM are significant in maintainability analysis as they provide rough characterizations of expected maintenance timeframes for corrective and preventive maintenance activities, respectively. These mean time measures help in assessing system availability and optimizing maintenance schedules, thereby contributing to improved system reliability and life-cycle cost management .

Lognormal distribution is used to characterize the repairability and serviceability of an item by representing the random times ('t' and ''t'') required for repair and preventive maintenance, respectively. It often shows a characteristic sudden increase after an initial period where values are near zero, followed by a fast decrease, effectively modeling the expected time intervals for maintenance activities, and therefore enabling better planning and management of maintenance resources .

Fault detection and isolation are critical in a maintainability maintenance concept for complex systems because they enable timely identification and localization of faults, minimizing system downtime. This capability is essential for effective corrective maintenance, especially in systems with redundancy, where hidden failures in redundant elements need to be identified to maintain overall system performance .

Partitioning complex systems into independent repairable units is important for maintainability as it simplifies diagnosis and repair processes, allowing for the targeted replacement or repair of smaller units rather than entire systems. This modular approach enhances logistical efficiency, reduces downtime, and facilitates more effective maintenance planning and execution .

Preventive maintenance plays a vital role in reducing wear-out failures by conducting scheduled activities such as functional tests and overhauls, which compensate for drift and extend the useful life of system components. This proactive approach to maintenance ensures that systems remain operational at optimal functionality, thereby enhancing overall maintainability and reducing the likelihood of unexpected breakdowns .

Coordinating maintenance activities from the design phase influences system life-cycle costs by allowing for the integration of maintainability features early in the development process. This proactive planning can significantly reduce repair times, improve logistical support efficiency, and lower long-term maintenance costs while also enhancing overall system availability and reliability, ensuring cost-effectiveness over the system's operational lifespan .

A comprehensive maintenance strategy for high maintainability in complex systems includes early design-phase activities coordinated by a maintenance concept, fault detection, fault isolation (via built-in tests), partitioning into independent repairable units, and logistical support such as after-sales service . This strategy needs to be tailored to the particular equipment or system to ensure effectiveness .

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