4s-1 Reliability

Chapter 4 Supplement

Reliability

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-2 Reliability

Reliability

• Reliability: The ability of a product, part, or

system to perform its intended function under
a prescribed set of conditions
• Failure: Situation in which a product, part, or
system does not perform as intended
• Normal operating conditions: The set of
conditions under which an item’s reliability is
specified

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-3 Reliability

Reliability is a Probability

• Probability that the product or system

will:
– Function when activated
– Function for a given length of time
• Independent events
• Redundancy

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-4 Reliability

Example 1: Reliability

Determine the reliability of the system shown

.90 .92

.98 .90 .95

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-5 Reliability

Example 1 Solution

The system can be reduced to a series of three

components

.98 .90+.90(1-.90) .95+.92(1-.95)

.98 x .99 x .996 = .966

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-6 Reliability

Failure Rate

Figure 4S-1

Infant Failures due

Few (random) failures
mortality to wear-out
Time, T

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-7 Reliability

Exponential Distribution

Figure 4S-2

Reliability = e -T/MTBF

1- e -T/MTBF

T Time

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-8 Reliability

Normal Distribution

Figure 4S-3

Reliability

0 z

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-9 Reliability

Availability

• The fraction of time a piece of equipment

is expected to be available for operation

MTBF
Availability 
MTBF  MTR

MTBF = mean time between failures

MTR = mean time to repair

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
4s-10 Reliability

Improving Reliability

• Component design
• Production/assembly techniques
• Testing
• Redundancy/backups
• Preventive maintenance procedures
• User education
• System design

Operations Management, Seventh Edition, by William J. Stevenson

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.