Reliability, availability, and maintainability

Reliability, availability, and maintainability

Reliability is the probability that an engineering system will perform its intended function satisfactorily (from the viewpoint of the customer) for its intended life under specified environmental and operating conditions. Maintainability is the probability that maintenance of the system will retain the system in, or restore it to, a specified condition within a given time period. Availability is the probability that the system is operating satisfactorily at any time, and it depends on the reliability and the maintainability. Hence the study of probability theory is essential for understanding the reliability, maintainability, and availability of the system.

Reliability is basically a design parameter and must be incorporated into the system at the design stage. It is an inherent characteristic of the system, just as is capacity, power rating, or performance. A great deal of emphasis is placed on quality of products and services, and reliability is a time-oriented quality characteristic. There is a relationship between quality or customer satisfaction and measures of system effectiveness, including reliability and maintainability. Customers are concerned with the performance of the product over time.

To analyze and measure the reliability and maintainability characteristics of a system, there must be a mathematical model of the system that shows the functional relationships among all the components, the subsystems, and the overall system. The reliability of the system is a function of the reliabilities of its components. A system reliability model consists of some combination of a reliability block diagram or a cause-consequence chart, a definition of all equipment failure and repair distributions, and a statement of spare and repair strategies. All reliability analyses and optimizations are made on these conceptual mathematical models of the system.

Maintainability is a measure of the ease and rapidity with which a system or equipment can be restored to operational status following a failure. It is a characteristic of equipment design and installation, personnel availability in the required skill levels, adequacy of maintenance procedures and test equipment, and the physical environment under which maintenance is performed. Maintainability is expressed as the probability that an item will be retained in or restored to a specific condition within a given period of time, when the maintenance is performed in accordance with prescribed procedures and resources.