RELIABILITY & MAINTAINABILITY

MAINTAINABILITY
 Maintenance Models
• Reliability and maintenance are closely
connected.
• Maintenance accounts for a large
proportion of costs associated with
equipments.
 12-5

Maintenance Models

• Standard maintenance terminology:

 MTBF = Mean time between failure.
 MTTR = Mean time to repair. This is the expected
value of the repair time.
 Availability = average fraction of time the
equipment operates.
• Availability = MTBF
____________
MTBF + MTTR
 Maintenance Models
Example:
• A copier machine has a MTBF of 400 operating
hours.
• Repairs typically require an average of 10 hours
from the time that the repair call is received until
service is completed.
• Determine the availability of this copiers?
 Maintenance Models
Solution:
The Availability is:
= 400/(400+10)
= 400/410
= 0.9756
Deterministic Age Replacement
Deterministic Age Replacement
• In some cases there are advantages
to replacing a piece of equipment
before it fails.
• This is true when the cost of repair is
much higher if the equipment fails
while it is operating.
Deterministic Age Replacement
• In some cases such as:
• military operations or
• space shuttle,
• an equipment failure might be
impossible to correct and could result
in the loss of life.
 12-11

Deterministic Age Replacement

Assumptions:
 Equipment is operating continuously.
 Ignore downtime for repair and
maintenance.
 Planning horizon is infinite.
 All new equipment is identical.
 Only maintenance and replacement costs
are considered.
 There is no salvage value.
Deterministic Age Replacement
Assumptions:
 Objective is to minimize long run costs of
replacement and maintenance.
 Average maintenance cost per unit time =
a
 The replacement cost of a failed item = K.
 Total maintenance cost per cycle (t) =
(at2/2)
Deterministic Age Replacement
The decision variable is:
• the amount of time that elapses from the
point that a piece of equipment is purchased
until it is replaced with a new item.
The objective of the analysis is:
• to determine the value of t that minimizes the
total cost of maintenance and replacement
over an infinite horizon.
 Deterministic Age Replacement
The replacement cycle is:
• the time between successive replacements.
Costs are:
•restricted to a single cycle since all
replacement cycles are identical.
 12-15

Deterministic Age Replacement

The optimal policy is to replace the
item when it reaches age t* given by:

2K
t* 
a
Deterministic Age Replacement
Example:
• Assume that the maintenance cost rate
of a car u years old is $400u.
• New car costs $10000.
• Find value of t*?
 Deterministic Age Replacement
Solution:
a = Average maintenance cost per unit
time = $400
K = $10000
t*= sqr(2K/a)
= sqr (2x10000)/400
= 7.07 years.
Deterministic Age Replacement
Homework :
• For the basic age replacement model,
consider a piece of equipment that costs
$18000 to replace.
• The total maintenance costs for 5 years of
operation are estimated to be $2400.
Deterministic Age Replacement
• Find:
1. The value of a?
2. The optimal age at which the
equipment should be replaced?
Analysis of Warranties
 12-21

Analysis of Warranties
• Warranties are a big business for
most consumer items such as:
Home electronics,
Computers,
Automobiles.
 Warranty Claims
Warranty costs measured in million dollars for several
large American manufacturers in 2006 and 2005.
Company 2006 Claims$ Million 2005 Claims $ Million
General Motors Corp. $4,463 $4,696
Ford Motor Co. $4,106 $3,986
Hewlett‐Packard Co. $2,346 $2,353
Dell Inc. $1,775 $1,521
Motorola Inc. $891 $716
IBM Corp. $762 $831
Caterpillar Inc. $745 $712
General Electric Co. $665 $699
Deere & Co. $509 $453
Whirlpool Corp. $459 $294
Boeing Co. $206 $146
Textron Inc. $167 $149
 Analysis of Warranties
Two common types of warranties are:
1. Free Replacement Warranty: items
that fail are replaced with new items.
2. Pro-rata warranty: A rebate is given
proportional to the remaining life of
the failed item.
 12-24

(1) Free Replacement Warranty

Define:
T = Lifetime of an item picked at random.
 = Failure rate of each item.
F(t) = Cumulative Distribution Function of T.
C1 = Cost of purchasing a new item with warranty.
K = Cost of purchasing a new item with no warranty.
W1 = Time that the free replacement warranty is in
effect after purchase.
 12-25

Optimal policy for free replacement

warranty
Assuming that items fail completely at random,
(according to an exponential distribution with
rate ),
Define C1*:
C1* = (  W1 + 1) K
The value of the free replacement warranty
is:
= C1* - K
 (2) Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
12-26

Warranty
Let W2 = Time that the pro-rata warranty is in
effect after purchase.
Define C2*:

 KW2
C2 
*
 W2
1 e
The value of the pro-rata warranty is:
= C 2* - K
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
Example
• Automobile battery is offered in three different
stores:
• Store A sells the battery for $21 and offers no
warranty or guarantee.
• Store B sells the battery for $40 and offers a free
replacement if the battery fails to hold a charge for
the first 2 years of operation.
• Store C sells the battery for $40 as well but offers a
pro rata warranty for anticipated lifetime of the
battery, which is advertised to be 5 years.
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
• From past experience it is estimate that
the time between failure is about once
every 3 years.
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
Solution:
• For full replacement warranties:
C1* = (  W1 + 1) K
K = 21
C1 = 40
 = 1/3
W1 = 2
C1* = {(1/3)(2) + 1} (21)
= $35
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
• The value of the free replacement warranty is:
= 35 – 21 = $14.
• Which is less than the $19 (40-21) difference in
the prices.
• On the basis of expected costs:
• The battery with no warranty (store A) is
preferred to the one with the free replacement
warranty (store B).
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
For the case of the pro rata warranty offered by
store C:
W2 = 5
Then:
 KW2
C2 *
  W2
1 e
= {(1/3)(21)(5)}/1-exp(-5/3)
= $43.15
 Optimal Policy for the Pro-Rata
Warranty
• The value of the pro rata warranty is:
= 43.15 – 21 = 22.15.
• Which exceeds the difference between the price
of the battery with the warranty and without
($19).
• And exceeds the value of the free replacement
warranty ( $14).
• Hence, on the basis of this analysis, the pro rata
warranty is the preferred choice.
 Homework
Homework:
• A producer of calculators estimates that the
calculators fail at a rate of one every 5 years.
• The calculators are sold for $25 each with
one-year free replacement warranty
• But can be purchased from an unregistered
mail order source for $18.5 without warranty.
• Is it worth purchasing the calculator with the
warranty?
THE END