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Introduction to MAROS
DNV GL has developed a performance simulator which provides an objective, quantitative
approach to systems' design. Performance is a measure of a system's ability to reach its design
requirements, which may be productivity related, or the need to provide a specific service or
function. The simulator is code named MAROS, which is an acronym for:

Maintainability, Availability, Reliability and Operability Simulation program.

MAROS is a design tool which permits the development and comparison of systems by
predicting their life-cycle behaviour pattern. Comparisons can be made of the most elementary
concepts in the early stages of a design project when few details are fixed (or known), while at
the other extreme complex systems can be optimized to yield maximum cost-efficiency. As its
acronym suggests the package encompasses well known 'types' of analyses which have been
successfully integrated into a simulation algorithm and offered as a design aid. Users need not
be specialists nor have an intimate understanding of the mathematics involved, emphasis is
placed on 'engineering' a system to cope with its lifetime design requirements. However, this
life-cycle approach does introduce the need to consider maintenance and operations of the
system as well as its initial design layout.

MAROS was originally developed for the offshore oil and gas industry where it has been used
extensively to design process facilities and transportation systems to exploit hydrocarbon
reservoirs. It is, however, a general purpose systems design tool currently used in a wide range
of applications including:

· Chemicals

· Power generation and distribution

· Defence

· Manufacturing

· Transportation

Its particular applications involve the following aspects:

· Equipment reliability and redundancy

· Establishing maintenance and intervention strategies

· System productivity and sales quotas

· System operability assessment

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· Safety procedures

· Risk analysis

· Operations research

MAROS was prototyped in 1984 and is under continual development.

More:

The MAROS Philosophy

What are Events?

What is a Life-Cycle scenario?

Performance Characteristics Life-cycle Scenarios

System Modelling

Simulation Approach

Introduction to MAROS

The MAROS Philosophy

MAROS predicts the performance of a system using simulation techniques. Performance in this
context implies design efficiency. An event-driven algorithm is used to create life-cycle
scenarios of the system under investigation accounting for its reliability, maintainability and
operating policies. Events and life-cycle scenarios are explained in the following section. Post-
processing of life-cycle scenarios yields important information on how a system performs. By
studying performance results and how they respond to altering specific parameters in the design
or its logistics it is possible to optimize the system with respect to given constraints. This life-
cycle simulation and design manipulation approach offers several important benefits:

· Large and complex systems can be analysed to a level of detail unobtainable by other
methods.

· MAROS is truly systems' design tool offering the ability to optimize a system.

· The concept is simple and easy to use; users need not be analysts or specialists.

· The computer-based approach permits a greater turnover of engineering work, i.e. the
approach itself cost-efficient in terms of man-hours required to produce results.

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Introduction to MAROS

What are Events?

Events comprise any occurrences within a system's life which affect the behaviour of the
system. A system can incur a wide range of events from the routine (expected), such as failure
and repair of equipment, routine inspection and overhaul etc., to the abnormal (undesirable),
such as catastrophic failure, loss of feedstock, loss of manpower (strikes) etc. In MAROS an
event is characterized as shown by the sketch in Figure 1 on the following page. There are six
important parameters which fully define an event:

· Time To Failure, which describes when an event occurs;

· Time To Repair, which describes the overall duration of the event;

· Capacity Loss at Failure, which describes the immediate consequences of the event upon
loss of functionality of the system;

· Capacity Loss at Repair, which describes the consequences of the event during the 'repair'
stage of the event;

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· Delay in commencing the repair stage of the event, i.e. time to diagnose what has
happened and decide upon an action to rectify the situation if necessary;

· Actual Repair Time, which describes the duration of the repair stage.

Figure 5: MAROS Event Schematic

The sketch above illustrates the most common event profile in which there are two distinct
stages to the event, i.e. a failure occurs with a consequence then, after a short delay the fault is
remedied causing a further degradation of the system. There are, however, numerous
permutations of the profile: there may be no delay; no consequences; one event can initiate
another event thus extending the profile etc.

Events can be formally classified depending on their mechanism of initiation. MAROS

incorporates three classes of events; Unscheduled Events, Scheduled Events and Conditional
Events.

Unscheduled Events
Unscheduled events are unplanned and occur at random, (i.e. their time to failure is irregular).
However, their occurrence usually corresponds to a particular mathematical distribution. The
most common group of unscheduled events are those associated with the failure of equipment
within a system.

Figure 6: Unscheduled events

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Introduction to MAROS

What is a Life-Cycle scenario?

A life-cycle scenario is a chronological sequence of events which typify the behaviour of a
system in real-time. MAROS can create an infinite number of such scenarios for any given
system, each one being unique, however sharing the commonality of being a feasible
representation of how the system would behave in practice. By analysing groups of life-cycle
scenarios, statistics can be extracted relating to the system's performance. Figure 2 below
illustrates two life-cycle scenarios for a specific system and the resultant statistic derived from
the outcome of 100 life-cycles.

Figure 9: Performance Characteristics Life-cycle Scenarios

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Introduction to MAROS

Performance Characteristics Life-cycle Scenarios

A system is designed to meet certain specifications and requirements, which may be to produce
a particular product (or products), provide a service, carry-out a specific function etc.

Performance characteristics are a set of statistics which give an overview of a system's ability to
meet its design requirements and how it behaves in reaching these requirements. There are no
specific rules on what performance characteristics include. MAROS concentrates on three main
aspects:

· Availability/productivity data including life cycle profiles, histograms, annual reports, and
statistical analyses.

· Design critique: identification of system weaknesses, bottlenecks in production, over-

design, and causes of weaknesses etc.

· System upkeep: maintenance strategies, services and equipment, spare parts inventories,
operating costs.

The foregoing performance criteria are post-processed from the life cycle scenarios generated
by the simulation algorithm.

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Introduction to MAROS

System Modelling
Before life-cycle scenarios can be created for a system it is necessary for TARO to understand
the basic system details that the user is investigating; this is achieved via a system logic model.
The entire modelling process in TARO consists of the following phases:

· Phase I: Plant Production Operations Definition – feed nodes sales streams, demand
constraints, bulk transport logistics, buffer level management operations rules;

· Phase II: Process and Equipment Definition – equipment layout, redundancy, reliability
and basic maintenance data.

· Phase III: Plant Support Logistics and Maintenance Strategy – maintenance resources
(crews, parts, tools etc.), locations, mobilization times, turnaround plans etc.

· Phase IV: Economic Analysis – capital expenditures, operational expenditures, cash flow
generation, etc.

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Introduction to MAROS

Simulation Approach
The simulation technique applied in MAROS is based upon event generation and is commonly
referred to as a 'direct simulation' method. The digital system model formed from the model
data moves from one distinct state to another, governed by the occurrence of a sequence of
events. The state of the model at any point in time (simulated time) is represented by a set of
variables, as each new event occurs one or more of the variables representing the model
changes. Progress of the simulation is in steps, from the occurrence of one event to the
occurrence of the next until the simulated time exceeds the specified design life of the system
being modelled.

Life-cycle scenarios are built-up by continuously monitoring the set of variables which describe
the state of the system model during a simulation. It is implicit, therefore, that the 'degree of
reality' within the simulation depends entirely on the sequence of events generated. Event
generation itself is a straightforward procedure in computing terms involving random number
generation, distribution sampling etc. The key to success of a simulator lies in its ability to
manage event sequences and carry out appropriate actions in accordance with these sequences.
MAROS contains a very efficient and 'intelligent' event management algorithm.

The simulation approach offers considerable advantages over alternative analysis methods:

· MAROS conducts a dynamic analysis of a system taking account of continuous changes

in the state of the system over its expected life. Account is taken of equipment
functionality, different component failure modes and consequences,
concurrent/sequential/conditional events, operating and maintenance philosophies,
availability of services and personnel. Clearly, any attempt to calculate performance
characteristics for such situations by deterministic methods (i.e. steady state availability,
fault trees, and reliability block diagram techniques) is virtually impossible.

· Simulation techniques can provide a distribution of results over the life of the system e.g.
productivity profile, whereas most deterministic methods provide a single expected
value e.g. time to first failure, expected number of failures etc. More insight into system
behaviour can be extracted from distributed results, and the user can also gain insight
into the consistency of performance associated with the system.

· A distinct advantage of using performance simulators is that the user gets a true 'feel' for
the system being simulated, and learns quickly about its good points and bad points.
These may relate to the design itself or its associated operations. Such insight helps the

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user to improve the system.

· Once a basic model is set-up design changes can be very quickly assessed. The proverbial
question 'What happens if?' can be answered. Optimisation of performance is a rapid
process.

· Performance simulators can be used for risk assessment and HAZAN studies.

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