Mohammad Zaid

MEAN TIME BETWEEN FAILURES & MEAN TIME TO REPAIR

MTBF
Mean Time between Failures (MTBF) is the expected time of the arrival of a failure. If Y is

the failure rate of the equipment then MTBF is

. The breakdown frequency is linked to

MTBF. Equipment with less frequent breakdowns implies a higher value of MTBF and vice versa. The equipment manufacturers sometimes supplies data on MTBF. However there is a set of assumptions behind these numbers. A more direct and easier approach to estimate MTBF is to maintain equipment history cards and record all the failures that have occurred. On analysis of this information one can estimate the MTBF.

MTTR
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) is the expected time for restoring the equipment back to working condition. If the service rate is denoted by u, then the MTTR is the inverse of the service rate, that

is,

MTTR is composed of two components in the maintenance context. The first is the exact identification of the nature of the problem and the remedies and repairs required.

Mohammad Zaid

The second is the actual repair of the equipment. The severity of breakdown will significantly influence the MTTR. If the breakdown is less severe then it may require less time to restore the equipment to working condition. Another factor that will influence MTTR is the quality of the maintenance activity itself. By developing superior trouble shooting methods, it is possible to quickly locate the root cause of the problem and thereby minimise the MTTR.

Availability
The availability is defined as the fraction of the time the equipment is available for production use. If, on an average, in a total time of A (t), the equipment is not operative for a period of [d (t)] due to breakdowns, then the availability is computed as

The equipment can be considered to go through a series of failures and repairs until the useful life is over. Therefore, an alternative definition for availability is expressed as:

Example
A manufacturer of an Air compressor to a new design has tested its product to assess the various maintenance performance measures. Fifty Air compressors were each put to test for a running time of 1000 hours. It was found that there were totally 120 small and medium types of failures during the testing phase. Totally 1350 hours were lost on account of identifying the problem and restoring it back to working condition. Based on this information, compute the following measures: 1. Failure rate of compressor. 2. MTBF.

Mohammad Zaid

3. MTTR. 4. Availability of compressor.

Solution:
Total time for which the compressor were tested = 50 x 1000 = 50000 hours Number of failures during this period = 120 Time taken for restoring compressor to working condition = 1350 hours

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