Search Site

"10 Steps to Effective Kanban" Honorable Mention for "Best Paper"

lean
article
mnu
Reliability
lead-
in The Science of Maintenance

Beginning in World War II, the War Department sponsored a new science called Reliability. Reliability is the science of maintenance. It uses
statistics and failure theory to measure, understand and improve the performance of equipment and maintenance. Reliability theory can
Mission
guide engineers as they design and test new equipment. After equipment has been in service, reliability data tells the maintenance engineer Reliability
how to improve its performance.
As the Gulf Wars demonstrated, this science has produced outstanding results in defense. Regrettably, little of this knowledge has found its Figure 4
way into industry. Most maintenance operations still operate on the principal of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Mission
Reliability
Failure Modes
Question: If
Failures occur in one of several modes. Understanding modes and what mode is the likely cause for specific failures is important because we dispatch
different approaches or strategies may be more or less effective on the various modes. Table 1 summarizes the various failure modes and 1000 heavy
illustrates their characteristic failure rates over time. bombers for
an 8-hour
Reliability Metrics mission,
what
percentage
Reliability uses many metrics for evaluating equipment and systems. The original metric, Mission Reliability, answered the question of will
figure 4. For industrial maintenance, the metric of Failure Rate is usually more relevant. Failure rate is the number of failures per 1000 complete
hours of operation. It can apply to a complex system such as a machine tool or it can apply to a large number of simple components such as the mission
light bulbs. This discussion focuses on units of complex equipment. without
mechanical
failure?

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 Table 1 Failure Modes & Characteristics

Failure Rate
Failure Mode
Curve

Early Life
These occur when the equipment is placed in service and are caused by sub-standard components and/or improper installation. Early life failures occur Early Life Reliability
frequently when the equipment is first placed in service and then rapidly decline.

Random Failures
These result from variations in both the load imposed on any given component and the variations in strengths of supposedly identical components. Random Random Failure
failure rates are essentially constant over the life span of the equipment and are normally small being overshadowed in most practical cases by other failure
modes.

Major Wearout
Major Wearout
This occurs when major sub-systems or structures become worn or weakened to the point that proper repair is impossible or impractical. Failure rate begins to Failure Rate
rise sharply and the only solution is major overhaul or replacement.

Minor Wearout
Minor Wearout
Most complex equipment requires regular replacement of various components as each component reaches its individual wearout life. Since the many Failure Rate
components have different lives and are changed at different times, the failure rate tends to be relatively constant overall and mimics the random failure rate
curve.

Early Life, Random & Wearout Early Life, Random

& Minor Wearout
When the previous failure modes are combined, the result is the "Bathtub Curve", familiar to many. Combined

Design Deficiency
Design Deficiency
This type of failure is the result of design error and shows up as a series of wearout failures. This type of failure does not occur on equipment that has been Failures
extensively tested and developed. It is inevitable on new designs which have not been thoroughly tested and on the "special" machines which are often used
in industry.
The worst problems will normally be corrected early on until the failure rate is reduced to a tolerable level. At that point, remaining design deficiencies are
indistinguishable from minor wearout failure.

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 All Modes Combined
All Modes Combined
With all modes combined, the failure curve is the familiar bathtub but with spikes of increased failures at irregular time. Determining the mode for specific
failures requires additional investigation and cannot be determined from the failure curve alone.

Reliability Metrics
Measuring Equipment Performance
Metrics help to focus efforts on the most critical equipment rather than reacting to the crisis de jour. They
measure progress and help to adjust efforts accordingly. They are critical for identifying and resolving specific
problems. Equipment metrics can be surprisingly simple. Only three data elements, collected for each machine
and analyzed properly, are really necessary for most situations.
This discussion is about the metrics for machine performance. It does not include metrics of maintenance
department productivity, budgeting or cost allocation. Such additional metrics are required to operate a
maintenance department effectively.
All these metrics are most effective in graphical form. They are not very meaningful as individual numbers.
However, in the context of past and future, trends, anomalies and patterns reveal themselves.
All of the first four metrics, the most useful, derive from three numbers. Assuming a calculation period of one
week, the following questions must be answered:

How many breakdowns (failures) did we have this week?

How long did each breakdown take to repair?
How many hours were scheduled for the equipment?

Calculations and tracking can be further simplified by assuming that each machine is scheduled for about the
same production (say 40 or 80 hours) and simply using one week as the time bucket.

Name Symbol Description Formula

Failure Rate Failure rate is one of the simplest and most useful metrics for machine Failure Rate
(Lambda) performance. It can be approximated by using a week, month or other
Failure Rate convenient period in place of actual operating hours. If data is accumulated on

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 a (say) weekly basis, the only input is the number of breakdowns during that
week.

MTBF is also a metric for machine performance. It is the inverse of Failure

Mean-Time- Rate and is thus calculated from the same parameters. It is a meaningful
Between- MTBF metric for long periods of time but not suitable for daily or weekly monitoring. If MTBF Equation
there are no breakdowns in a given period, the MTBF for that period is
Failure mathematically "undefined."

Mean-Time- Mean-Time-To-Repair is another simple yet valuable metric for industrial

To-Repair
MTTR maintenance. It reflects both the severity of breakdowns and the efficacy of MTTR Equation
repair activities.

Availability is the portion or percentage of time that equipment is available for

operation. It is commonly referred to as “Uptime”. Availability is another useful
Availability A metric for industrial maintenance and you will want to track it along with Availability Equation
Failure Rate and MTTR. Availability derives from the same data collected for
MTTR and Failure Rate. It is easy to calculate.

Reliability is the probability that equipment will complete a mission of length “t”
without failure. It is an exponential function. Reliability has limited use for most
Reliability R(T) industrial maintenance although it is important for military and other
Mission Reliability Equation
applications.

Overall Overall-Equipment-Effectiveness is a new metric that has received

Equipment OEE considerable publicity in recent years. It attempts to capture all the parameters OEE Equation
in a single measure. However, the practical application is somewhat limited.
Effectiveness

Maintenance
■■■■■■■

Contact ©_Permissions
Webmaster Strategos-International: North America - Europe - Australia Strategos
SEP 2007 Footer

Lean Briefing Logo Books & Videos

The Strategos Guide To Value Stream and

Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API PDFCROWD
 The Free Newsletter Process Mapping goes far beyond
symbols and arrows. In over 163
of Lean pages it tells the reader not only
how to do it but what to do with it.
Manufacturing Strategy More info...
Lean Briefing Archives Strategos Guide to Value Stream &
Process Mapping
Create PDF in your applications with the Pdfcrowd HTML to PDF API
Books & Videos
Guide to Cycle Counting
Facilities & Workplace Design
Warehouse Planning Guide
Human Side of Lean Video
PDFCROWD