Availability and Maintainability

The increasing pace of mechanization and automation of industries has enhanced the business risks associated with nonfunctioning of production units and other engineering systems. In general, such units and engineering systems are expected to function round the clock without failure. However, owing to design deficiencies or the influence of operational stresses, these systems are not always able to meet the users' requirements in terms of system performance. This is often attributed to poorly designed reliability and maintainability characteristics, combined with poor maintenance and product support strategies. If the designed reliability and maintainability characteristics are poor and the maintenance organization is unable to meet the requirements, this may result in a poor availability performance. Even though high reliability is desirable to reduce the costs of maintenance and maintenance preparedness, the benefits of improved maintainability should not be ignored in achieving the required availability performance. Availability is the most commonly used measure of the state of plant and systems all over the world.

In this chapter, a brief discussion on the concepts of availability and maintainability is presented with some examples.

References

1 Modarres, M. (2006). Risk Analysis in Engineering: Techniques, Tools, and Trends, CRC Press.
Google Scholar
2 IEV 191 (2007). Dependability and quality of service, in International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV) Online, Chapter 191, at http://std.iec.ch/iec60050 (accessed Jan 2007).
Google Scholar
3 Andrews, J.D. & Moss, T.R. (2006). Reliability and Risk Assessment, ISBN 1860582907, 2nd Edition, Professional Engineering Publisher, London.
Google Scholar
4 Blanchard, B.S., Verma, D. & Peterson, E.L. (1995). Maintainability: A Key to Effective Serviceability and Maintenance Management, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Google Scholar
5 Dhillon, B.S. (2002). Engineering Maintenance: A Modern Approach, ISBN 1-58716-142-7, CRC Press.
10.1201/9781420031843
Google Scholar
6 Robinson Jr, J.E., Deutsch, W.E. & Roger, J.G. (1970). The field maintenance interface between human engineering and maintainability engineering, Human Factors 12(3), 253–259 (Special issue on maintenance and maintainability).
10.1177/001872087001200303
Web of Science® Google Scholar
7 IEC 60300-3-10 (2001). International Standard IEC 60300-3-10: Dependability Management—Part 3—10: Application Guide—Maintainability, Geneva.
Google Scholar
8 IEC 60706-2 (2006). International Standard IEC 60706-2: Maintainability of Equipment—Part 2: Maintainability Requirements and Studies During the Design and Development Phase, 2nd Edition, Geneva.
Google Scholar
9 IEC 60706-3 (2006). International Standard IEC 60706-3: Maintainability of Equipment—Part 3: Verification and Collection, Analysis and Presentation of Data, 2nd Edition, Geneva.
Google Scholar
10 Tjiparuro, Z. & Thompson, G. (2004). Review of maintainability design principles and their application to conceptual design, Part E: Journal of Process Mechanical Engineering 218(2), 103–113.
10.1243/095440804774134280
Web of Science® Google Scholar
11 Smith, R.L., Westland, R.A. & Crawford, B.M. (1970). The status of maintainability models: a critical review, Human Factors, Special Issue on Maintenance and Maintainability 12(3), 271–283.
Web of Science® Google Scholar
12 Wani, M.F. & Gandhi, O.P. (1999). Development of maintainability index for mechanical systems, Reliability Engineering and System Safety 65, 259–277.
10.1016/S0951-8320(99)00004-6
Web of Science® Google Scholar
13 IEC 60300-3-9 (1995). International Standard IEC 60300-3-9: Dependability Management—Part 3: Application Guide—Section 9: Risk Analysis of Technological Systems, Geneva.
Google Scholar

Citing Literature

Encyclopedia of Quantitative Risk Analysis and Assessment

Browse other articles of this reference work: