Repairable items
Reliability is the probability that failure will not
occur in the period of interest, when more than
one failure can occur.
Can also be expressed as rate of occurrence of
failures or ROCOF
characterized by the Mean time between
failures or MTBF only under constant failure
rate
Pattern of failures with time for repairable
items (illustrated by bath tub curve)
CFR – constant failure rate is indicative of
externally induced failures. It is also typical of
complex systems subject to repair and overhaul
DFR – decreasing failure rate is when reliability
is improved by progressive repair,
IFR – Increasing failure rate occurs when failure
modes of parts begin to predominate.
MTBF( Repairable) MTTF( Non-repairable)
MTBF = 1 / λ MTTF = 1 / λ
For items which are for items which are not
repaired repaired
Maintainability, Maintenance and Availability
The ease with which repairs and other maintenance work can be carried out determines a system’s
maintainability.
Maintained systems a) corrective maintenance
Corrective maintenance (not planned)
includes all action to return a system from a
failed to an operating or available state
Quantified as the mean time to repair (MTTR).
The time to repair, however, includes several
activities, usually divided into three groups:
 Preparation time
 Active maintenance time
 Delay Time (logistics time)
Also specified as a mean active repair time
(MART) or mean active corrective maintenance
time (MACMT), since it is only the active time
(excluding documentation) that the designer
can influence.
*Maintainability affects availability directly. How?
a close relationship between reliability and maintainability, one affecting the other and both
affecting availability and costs
Non-repairable items
Reliability is the survival probability over the
item’s expected life, or for a period during its
life, when only one failure can occur.
Hazard rate, λ – the instantaneous probability
of the first and only failure
Characterized by the Mean time to failure or
MTTF or percentile life.
Pattern of failures with time for non-repairable
items (illustrated by bath tub curve)
DHR – decreasing hazard rate are observed in
items which become less likely to fail as their
survival time increases
CHR – constant hazard rate is characteristic of
failures which are caused by the application of
loads in excess of the design strength
IHR - Wear out failure modes follow an
increasing hazard rate
b) preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance (planned)
seeks to retain the system in an operational or
available state by preventing failures from
occurring
Measured by the time taken to perform the
specified maintenance tasks and their specified
frequency.
Affects reliability directly.
 Availability
Defined as the probability that an item will be available when required, or as the proportion of total
time that the item is available for use.
The proportion of total time that the item is available (functional) is the steady-state availability.
Inherent Availability 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹 𝜇
𝐴= =
the steady state availability which considers 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝐹 + 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑅 λ+ μ
only the corrective maintenance 1
Where; 𝜇 = ⁄𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑅
Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)
Achieved Availability 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀𝐴
𝐴𝐴 =
*similar to inherent availability with the 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀𝐴 + 𝑀𝑀𝑇
exception that PM downtimes are also MTBMA (mean time between maintenance actions
included. MMT (mean maintenance time)
*sometimes referred to as the availability 1
𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀𝐴 =
seen by the maintenance department λ + 𝑓𝑃𝑀
λ = 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒
𝑓𝑃𝑀 =frequency of preventive maintenance, the
reciprocal of PM Cycle.
λ 𝑀𝑇𝑇𝑅 + 𝑓𝑃𝑀 𝑀𝑃𝑀𝑇
𝑀𝑀𝑇 =
λ + 𝑓𝑃𝑀
Where MTTR is the mean CM time and MPMT
(Mean Preventive Maintenance Time) is the mean
PM time.
Operational Availability 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀𝐴
𝐴𝑂𝑃 =
Measure of the ‘real’ average availability 𝑀𝑇𝐵𝑀𝐴 + 𝑀𝐷𝑇
over a period of time in an actual
operational environment. It includes all where: MDT =Mean maintenance downtime.
experienced sources of downtime, such as MDT =MMT + (logistics delay time) +
administrative downtime and logistic (administrative delay time)
downtime,