ARTICLE IN PRESS

Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Reliability Engineering and System Safety

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ress

Classification and calculation of primary failure modes in bread

production line
Panagiotis H. Tsarouhas 
Department of Standardization and Transportation of Products—Logistics, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki,
Agiou Dimitriou 93, 60100 Katerini, Hellas, Greece

a r t i c l e in fo abstract

Article history: In this study, we describe the classification methodology over a 2-year period of the primary failure
Received 8 March 2008 modes in categories based on failure data of bread production line. We estimate the probabilities of
Received in revised form these categories applying the chi-square goodness of fit test, and we calculate their joint probabilities of
15 May 2008
mass function at workstation and line level. Then, we present numerical examples in order to predict
Accepted 14 June 2008
the causes and frequencies of breakdowns for workstations and for the entire bread production line that
Available online 26 June 2008
will occur in the future. The methodology is meant to guide bread and bakery product manufacturers,
Keywords: improving the operation of the production lines. It can also be a useful tool to maintenance engineers,
Bread production line who wish to analyze and improve the reliability and efficiency of the manufacturing systems.
Efficiency
& 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Reliability
Maintenance
Quality
Machinery failures

1. Introduction of quality deterioration during stoppage. The study by Seifoddini

Unexpected machine failures may have a great impact on the
performance of the production line. They are also responsible for
the major causes of downtime and low availability and customers’
dissatisfaction, increasing maintenance time and production
costs. Mobley [1] cited that maintenance costs are a major part
of the total operating costs of all manufacturing or production
plants, and depending on the specific industry, maintenance costs
can represent between 15% and 60% of the cost of goods produced.
To reduce the likelihood of machine breakdowns, a maintenance
policy is required that involves the repair or replacement of
machine parts, and can be scheduled to be performed periodically.
Smith [2] reported that staff scheduling requires knowledge of the
equipment failure rates; different failure modes require different
repair times and have different failure rates.
In food production line the negative impact of failures not only
constrains the failed machine to stop but also forces most of the
machines upstream of the failure to operate without producing,
thereby, causing a gap in the productivity of the line. In addition, if
the failure is rather long, it may cause an additional gap in the
production line; therefore, some or all of the work-in-process
material upstream of the failed machine may be scrapped because
 Tel./fax: +30 2351020940.
E-mail address: ptsarouh@teilam.gr
and Djassemi [3] also observed that the impact of delays due to
machine breakdowns is not limited to the production rate of the
part only, but affects scheduling and productivity of the entire
manufacturing operations.
Tajiri and Gotoh [4] mentioned that the total productive
maintenance is considered as an application of total quality
management concepts to equipment, for zero breakdowns and
minimal production loss. Tsarouhas [5] implemented the total
productive maintenance in a pizza production line, increasing the
production rate, improving the quality of the products, and
providing a healthier and safer work environment. Van Der Duyn
Schouten and Vanneste [6] add that making appropriate decisions
on maintenance and replacement are very important if a system is
composed of several different components with different main-
tenance characteristics. Jeon et al. [7] proposed a cellular
manufacturing system design model to consider alternative routes
during machine failure. The study considered a predefined
number of breakdowns for each of the machines and developed
the model to reduce waiting cost, early/late finish penalty cost,
and sum of inventory holding cost by selecting alternative routes
to handle the breakdowns.
In the production line equipment failure is often caused by
inadequate and inefficient maintenance as well as the inability to
predict problems that may occur subsequently. The failure
mechanism is defined by the mode and case of the failure. Whyte
and Bytheway [8] reported that estimates have shown that at least

0951-8320/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ress.2008.06.014
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
552 P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557
half of all systems are failures. Warburton et al. [9] stated that
successful plant operations depend on understanding design
failure modes and achieving full component life. Montague [10]
tries to quantify in a more precise way the economical gravity of a
failure including considerations about the costs of defective
products, corrective maintenance, etc.
There is substantial literature on the failure field data analysis
of production lines. Barabady [11] showed a preliminary study
analysis of the Time between Failures data of the crushing plant
number 1 and number 2 at Jajarm Bauxite Mine of Iran that the
results of the study were useful for a better understanding of
failure patterns that influenced the decision-making process
concerning operation planning and maintenance activities of
the plant. Diallo et al. [12] carried out a reliability analysis of
the individual machines and manufacturing system states in the
presence of unreliable machines, and proposed an approach to
design manufacturing cells which can change process plans to
handle machine breakdowns. Wang et al. [13] described the
failure analysis of computerized numerical control (CNC) lathes;
the field failure data were collected over a period of 2 years on
approximately 80 CNC lathes.
The literature on field failure data of production lines in the
food industry is limited. Liberopoulos and Tsarouhas [14]
presented a case study of speeding up a croissant production line
by inserting an in-process buffer into the middle of the line to
absorb some of the downtime, based on the simplifying assump-
tion that the failure and repair times of the workstations of the
lines have exponential distributions. The parameters of these
distributions were computed based on actual data collected
over 10 months. Liberopoulos and Tsarouhas [15] also studied
the statistical analysis of failure data of an automated pizza
production line, covering a period of 4 years, computing the most
important descriptive statistics of the failure data, and investi-
gated the existence of autocorrelations and cross correlations in
the failure data.
In this manuscript, we exhibit a methodology to classify the
primary failure modes in categories based on failure data of bread
production line covering a period of 2 years. Then, we estimate the
Flour
Elevator- Volumetric
silo
tipping dough
Mixer device divider
Load/unload bowl
Temperature
Controlled room
Conical
rounder
Bread
making
machine
Trays return
Proofing Cell
Fig. 1. System block diagram of the bread production line.
probabilities of failure causes for the bread production line,
applying the chi-square goodness of fit test at workstation and
line level. Also, based on multinomial distribution, we presented
the models that can be predicting the causes of the next m
breakdowns of the line. Furthermore, we drew numerical
examples that affect the efficiency and maintenance policy of
the production line. It is a useful tool to evaluate the current
condition and to predict the efficiency, improving the operation
management of the bread production line. Literature does not
contain significant major research work directly related to the
nature of failures.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
we describe the production process of the automated bread
production line, and in Section 3 we describe the current
operation management of the line. In Section 4, we classify the
failures and calculate the probabilities at workstation and line
level. In Section 5, we present numerical examples and we
conclude in Section 6.
2. Description of an automated bread-processing line
An automated bread-processing line consists of several work-
stations in series integrated into one system by a common transfer
mechanism and a common control system. The movement of
material between stations is performed automatically by mechan-
ical means. There are six distinct stages in making bread (Fig. 1):
kneading, forming, proofing cell, baking, cool down, and wrap-
ping. Each stage corresponds to one workstation; the process flow
of a bread production line is as follows.
In workstation 1, flour from the silo and water are auto-
matically fed into the removable bowl of the spiral mixer
machine. Additional ingredients such as salt and yeast are
added manually in small quantities. Mixing and kneading
on a two-speed gear are needed. In the first gear, mixing of
dough, an ingredient, is completed in 5 min, while in the
second gear, kneading is completed in 10 min. After the dough
is kneaded, the bowl is manually unloaded from the spiral
Cooling
Tower
Lifting
Oven
Wrapping
Machine
Robot
Carton
machine Products to
Distribution
Center
Palletising
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557 553

machine and loaded onto the elevator-tipping device, which
is a hydraulic system that lifts the spiral mixer for dough
discharge in the inlet funnel of the volumetric divider in the next
workstation.
In workstation 2, the dough is fed into the volumetric divider,
which is cut and divided in isobaric pieces, and then automatically
fed into a conical rounder machine that does partial rounding of
the dough. The rounding is done by rotation on an aluminium
teflon cone, when the cone turns; it rounds the dough moving it in
the helicon channels to the top where it is dropped out through
the scoop. An additional moulding of the dough is carried out in
the bread machine and the product takes the adequate bread
loaves shape. The entire process is fully automated. At the exit of
the bread machine, the loaves are laid onto metal baking pans that
are automatically fed to the next workstation.
In workstation 3, the baking pans are automatically pushed
into the proofing cell, where they remain under strict uniform
temperature and humidity conditions for a precise amount of time
as the loaves rise to their final size.
In workstation 4, the baking pans are automatically unloaded
from the proofing cell and are placed onto a metal conveyor belt
that passes through the oven. The trays remain in the oven for a
precise amount of time until the loaves are fully baked.
In workstation 5, the baking pans are collated together and fed
into the cool down machine entrance. As soon as they enter the
cool down, they are moved onto the stabilized trays by means of a
pusher bar. The trays are automatically transported inside the cool
down machine by conveyors and paternoster-type lifts in order for
the loaves to cool down for a certain time and stabilize. The
baking pans are pushed off the stabilized trays onto the outfeed
belt and are automatically transported out of the cool down
machine.
In workstation 6, the loaves are automatically lifted from the
baking pans and are flow-packed and sealed by a horizontal,
electronic wrapping machine. The empty pans are automatically
returned to the bread machine. The final products that exit from
the bread-processing line are loaded onto a conveyor belt. From
there, they are picked up by a robot system and put in cartons. The
filled cartons are placed on a different conveyor belt that takes
them to a worker who stacks them onto palettes and transfers
them to the finished-goods warehouse.
3. Operation management
The bread production line operates in three 8-h shifts during
each workday, including weekends 7 days per week with no
pauses. The maintenance policy that is used is corrective
maintenance. When a failure occurs, the maintenance staff who
is responsible for the proper operation of the line performs the
necessary corrective maintenance operations to repair the failure.
Corrective maintenance comprises of actions taken to restore a
failed component or machine to an operational state. The actions
involve repair or replacement of all failed components necessary
for successful operation of the production line. Corrective
maintenance actions are unscheduled actions intended to restore
the line from a failed state into a working state. The maintenance
staff (mechanics and electricians) is also responsible for keeping
hand-written records of the failures during each shift. The records
include the categories of failure mode or modes that had occurred
during each shift.
Consider the field data of 1512 failures recorded of the
maintenance staff of the bread production line for a period of 746
continuous working days (2 years). All the failures are categorized
in terms of the nature of the failure mode. The categories of failure
mode include: (a) mechanical failures e.g., failure of gearboxes,
conveyor belts, motion chains, pumps, ball bearings, etc.; (b)
electrical failures e.g., failure of electrical motors, relays, fuses,
brake system, etc.; (c) electronic failures e.g., failure of photocells,
sensors, inverters, etc.; (d) pneumatic failures e.g., failure of pistons,
valves, air filters, etc.; (e) raw ingredients failures e.g., humidity in
flour, expired yeast, insects, etc.; (f) operator failures e.g., malfunc-
tion of machine due to human error, etc.; (g) other e.g., adjustment,
regulation, cleaning, etc.
Presented in Table 1 is the classification of primary failure
modes in categories described above for the bread production line
at machine and workstation level. The classification has been
done for simplicity of the technical department and to separate
the competencies between the maintenance staff. Furthermore, it
gives a more evident image of the cause of damage, the frequency
that occurs, and the gravity in the operation of production line.
Thus, we can easily decide on working hours and the staff with the
specifications that are needed so that they maintain the line
effectively.

Table 1
Classification of primary failure modes in categories for the bread production line

Mechanical Electrical Electronic Pneumatic Raw Operator Other

failures failures failures failures ingredients failures

WS1
Silo 1 31 7 9 29 0 0
Mixer 31 9 0 0 0 0 9
Tip 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

WS2
Volumetric divider 67 36 28 7 37 0 7
Conical rounder 26 12 11 3 15 0 2
Bread mach 261 13 7 0 0 74 0

WS3
Proofing cell 57 15 24 4 0 1 1

WS4
Oven 23 59 3 0 0 17 0

WS5
Cool down 33 5 25 9 0 200 0

WS6
Lifting mach 61 21 14 12 0 30 3
Wrapping 56 36 4 2 0 0 0
Robot 6 0 0 0 0 57 0
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

554 P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557

Pareto Chart for bread production line

1500 100

80

1000

Percent
60
Count

40
500
20

0 0

res res res res ilu res ers

ilu fail
u ilu fail
u
t fa Oth
Defect
cal fa or cal fa ic en
ani rat ctri ron edi
ch Ope Ele El ect ngr
Me wi
Ra
Count 622 379 239 123 81 68
Percent 41.1 25.1 15.8 8.1 5.4 4.5
Cum % 41.1 66.2 82.0 90.1 95.5 100.0

Fig. 2. Pareto diagram for the classification of failures of the bread production line.

In Fig. 2 we exhibit Pareto’s diagram for all failures pre-

Failures Sample
sented in a bread production at line level, and we can make the
size n
following observations: (a) in the production line the major
problem of failure mode is mechanical with 41.1%. (b) Also,
a serious problem is the operator failures that have 25.1%
that is independent of the equipment’s function of the line.
During machine operation the production line stops due to Classification
human error i.e., in the robot machine the operator supplies of failures
inappropriate cartons which has the effect of continuous
stoppages of the machine. Those categories of failures com-
prise 2/3 of all the failures for the production line. (c) The
electrical, electronic, and raw ingredients failures that have
Class 1: Class 2: Class k:
15.8%, 8.1%, and 5.4% of all the failures, respectively, play a
Frequency Frequency Frequency
significant role. x1 x2 xk

Fig. 3. Architecture of reliability data for the bread production line in one-way
4. Classification and calculation of type probabilities for bread
classification.
line

The field failure data that we used was extracted from the Table 2
hand-written records of failures that the maintenance staff kept The class probabilities for the bread production line level
during each shift. The records included the failure mode or modes
that had occurred during the shift, the action taken and the repair p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7
time. Based on the failure data, in this section, we calculate the
0.41137 0.15806 0.08135 0.03042 0.05357 0.25066 0.01455
probabilities for the deferent classes of failure modes and we
evaluate the hypothesis testing, which allows assessing the
plausibility of a specific statement for these probabilities. Thus,
we use the following notation: ei,j the expectation class i of workstation j
pi,j probability of class i of workstation j
pi probability of class i that was presented in the produc-
tion line Consider the field data in one-way classification (see Fig. 3),
n sample size of the recorded failures (independent trials) each of n failures (observations) is classified into one (and only
Xi random variable that count the number of failures of one) of k classes [16]. The resulting class frequencies are x1,
P
class frequency i x2, y, xk with ki¼1 xi ¼ n.
xi the class frequency i, nonnegative integer values For fixed total sample size n, data sets of this kind can be
ei the expectation of class i that presented in the produc- modelled with multinomial distribution that depends upon a set
P
tion line of class probabilities: p1, p2, y, pk with ki¼1 pi ¼ 1.
WSj workstation j The breakdowns of bread production line may be characte-
Xi,j random variable that count the number of failures of rized due to mechanical failure p1, electrical failure p2, electronic
class frequency i of workstation j failure p3, pneumatic failure p4, raw ingredient failure p5, operator
xi,j the class frequency i of workstation j failure p6, and other failure p7. From the data of Table 1, with
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557 555

pi ¼ xi/n, 1pipk, we obtain the class probabilities for the line and the expected class frequencies or the expected number of
(see Table 2). failure class i,j is
The plausibility of this suggestion can be examined with a chi-
ei;j ¼ nj  pi;j ; where i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 7 and j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 6 (5)
square goodness of fit test. For this reason, we infer the
multinomial distribution, which is considered a multivariable It is easy to find a complete coincidence between the observed
extension of the binomial distribution. We also estimate each class frequencies and the expected class frequencies; therefore,
failure is classified into one of k classes and all failures are the null hypothesis is plausible for the workstation level with the
independent. followings probabilities.
We assume a multinomial distribution with k ¼ 7 cells and a From Table 3 we can make the following observations: (a) the
set of unknown cell probabilities p1, y, p7. Based upon a set of mechanical failure modes are more evident during the forming
P7
observed cell frequencies x1, y, x7 with i¼1 xi ¼ 1512, the null (WS2) and the proofing cell (WS3), with probabilities 58.41% and
hypothesis H0: p1 ¼ 0.41137, p2 ¼ 0.15806, p3 ¼ 0.08135, p4 ¼ 55.88%, respectively. (b) The electrical failure modes are presented
0.03042, p5 ¼ 0.05357, p6 ¼ 0.25066, p7 ¼ 0.01455, which states during baking (WS4) and kneading (WS1), with probabilities
that the class probabilities take the specific set of values, has a p- 57.84% and 32.81%, respectively. (c) The electronic failure modes
value that can be calculated as are shown during the proofing cell (WS3), with a probability
of 23.52%. (d) The failure of raw ingredients is presented
p-value ¼ PfX 2k1 XX 2 g (1)
during the kneading (WS1), with a probability of 22.65%. (e) The
where the chi-square test statistic is failure of human error is exhibited during the cool down (WS5)
and wrapping (WS6), with probabilities 73.52% and 28.80%,
X
7
ðxi  ei Þ2 respectively.
w2 ¼ (2)
i¼1
ei Therefore, we can predict the next mj failure modes of the
bread production line at workstation level from multinomial
with expected class i frequencies or the expected number of distribution, and the probability mass function is
failure class i is
mj ! 1j 7j
ei ¼ n  pi ; where n ¼ 1512 and i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 7 (3) PWSj fX 1j ¼ x1j ; :::; X 7j ¼ x7j g ¼  px1j      pxj7 ,
x1j !:::x7j !
Substituting the values in (2) we obtain: w2 ¼ 1.19E29 for j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 6 (6)
compared with a chi-square distribution with k1 ¼ 7–1 ¼ 6
degrees of freedom, which is an exponential distribution with
mean 6. 5. Numerical examples
Thus (1) becomes: p-value ¼ P{X26X1.19E29} ¼ 1.
Therefore the null hypothesis is plausible, and such a large p- The failure field data of the bread production line for a
value indicates that there is an almost complete coincidence period of 746 continuous working days, counted 1512 failures.
between the observed class frequencies x1, y, x7 and the expected Therefore, we can approximate the failure rate of the line as 1512/
class frequencies e1, y, e7. 746 ¼ 2.027 failures per day. Accordingly, we can have a short-
We can predict the next m failure modes of the bread term prediction of up to 10 working days, which corresponds to
production line that have multinomial distribution, and their 10  2.027E20 failures. Having fixed the number of failures m in
joint probability mass function is bread production line, with Eqs. (3) and (4), we can predict the
allocation of the failures and calculate the joint probabilities mass
m! 1 7
function at line level. In Table 4, we present the allocation of
P Line fX 1 ¼ x1 ; . . . ; X 7 ¼ x7 g ¼  px1      px7 (4)
x1 ! . . . x7 ! failures for different values of m and the probabilities of mass
Formula (4) is more important to the technical depart- function for bread production line at line level. It is important to
ment because we can predict the nature of the next m fixed observe the actual number of failure m until the first failure of Xi.
breakdowns of the line, assuming one is independent of the other
failures. Table 4
The chi-square goodness of fit test at workstation level can be Allocation of failures for different m and the probabilities mass function at line
level
applied, with observed class frequencies xi,j where m failures
(observations) is classified into one (and only one) of the k classes m X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7 PLine
of l workstations, thus we obtain:
1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.41137
X
l k X
X l 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.130042
m¼ mj ¼ xi;j 3 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0.097789
j¼1 i¼1 j¼1 4 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0.080455
5 2 1 1 0 0 1 0 0.032725
6 2 1 1 0 0 2 0 0.024609
7 3 1 1 0 0 2 0 0.023621
Table 3 8 3 1 1 0 1 2 0 0.010123
The class probabilities for the bread production line of workstation levels 9 4 1 1 0 1 2 0 0.00937
10 4 2 1 0 1 2 0 0.007405
pi,j W S 11 4 2 1 0 1 3 0 0.006806
Categories 1 2 3 4 5 6 12 5 2 1 0 1 3 0 0.006719
13 5 2 1 1 1 3 0 0.002657
1 0.25000 0.58415 0.55882 0.22549 0.12132 0.40728 14 6 2 1 1 1 3 0 0.002551
2 0.32812 0.10066 0.14705 0.57843 0.01838 0.18874 15 6 2 1 1 1 4 0 0.002397
3 0.05468 0.07590 0.23529 0.02941 0.09191 0.05960 16 7 2 1 1 1 4 0 0.002254
4 0.07031 0.01650 0.03921 0.00000 0.03308 0.04635 17 7 3 1 1 1 4 0 0.002019
5 0.22656 0.08580 0.0000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 18 7 3 1 1 1 5 0 0.001822
6 0.00000 0.12211 0.00980 0.16666 0.73529 0.28807 19 8 3 1 1 1 5 0 0.00178
7 0.07031 0.01485 0.00980 0.00000 0.00000 0.00993 20 8 3 2 1 1 5 0 0.001448
 ARTICLE IN PRESS

556 P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557

Thus, the first failure of mechanical nature (X1) is likely to appear
when m ¼ 1, the first failure of electrical cause (X2) is likely to
appear when m ¼ 2, the first failure of human error cause (X6) is
likely to appear when m ¼ 3, the first failure of electronic cause
(X3) is likely to appear when m ¼ 5, the first failure of raw
ingredient cause (X5) is likely to appear when m ¼ 8, and the first
failure of pneumatic cause (X4) is likely to appear when m ¼ 13.
We also observe in probability mass function (4) that if x1 ¼ 1
and x2 ¼ ? ¼ x7 ¼ 0, which is the special case that in the
production line presented only one failure of the first class and

0.8 1
p1 p11
0.7 0.9
p2 p21
0.8
0.6 p3 p31
0.7

Probability
Probability

p4 p41
0.5 0.6
p5 p51
0.4 p6 0.5 p61
0.3 p7 0.4 p71
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

10

12

14

16

18

20
x x

0.8 1
p12 0.9 p13
0.7
p22 p23
0.8
0.6 p32 p33
p42 0.7 p43
Probability

Probability

0.5 p52 0.6 p53

0.4 p62 0.5 p63
p72 p73
0.3 0.4
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

10

12

14

16

18

20
x x

1 1
p14 p15
0.9 0.9
p24 p25
0.8 0.8
p34 p35
0.7 0.7
Probability
Probability

p44 p45
0.6 p54 0.6 p55
0.5 p64 0.5 p65
0.4 0.4 p75
p74
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

10

12

14

16

18

20

x x

1
p16
0.9
p26
0.8
p36
0.7
Probability

p46
0.6 p56
0.5 p66
0.4 p76

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

Fig. 4. Probabilities mass function vs. independent failures (x ¼ 20) for the bread production line and all workstations.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
P.H. Tsarouhas / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 94 (2009) 551–557
no failure from the other classes, it is easy to see that from (4):
P Line fX 1 ¼ 1; X 2 ¼    ¼ X 7 ¼ 0g
1!
¼  p11  p02      p07 ¼ p1 ¼ 0:41137
1!0!:::0!
Furthermore, if x1 ¼ 2 and x2 ¼ ? ¼ x7 ¼ 0, which is the special
case that in the production line presented only two failures of the
first class, we obtain: (p1)2 ¼ 0.1692.
The same occurs if only one failure is presented of the second
class PLine{X2 ¼ 1 and X1 ¼ ? ¼ X7 ¼ 0} ¼ p2 ¼ 0.15806 in the
bread production line, etc.
In addition, we can also investigate how the probabilities of the
different categories pi and pi.j affect the line’s maintenance policy,
improving the efficiency of the bread production line. Thus, we
perform a numerical study assuming the Binomial distribution to
be the most suitable in case (a) XiEB (20, pi), with i ¼ 1.2, y, 7 for
line level and case (b) Xi.jEB (20, pi.j), with i ¼ 1.2, y, 7 and
j ¼ 1.2, y, 6 for workstation level. In both cases, the random
variable of interest is the number of failures obtained within a
fixed number of 20 independent total failures, each of which has a
constant probability pi and pi.j of failure for case (a) and case (b),
respectively.
From Fig. 4, we can make the following observations: (a) all
diagrams have ‘belt-shaped’ curves similar to the probability
density function of a Normal distribution. Therefore, we may be
provided with an approximation of the binomial distribution to the
normal distribution when x is reasonably large and the probabil-
ities pi, pi.j are not too close to zero or one. (b) The WS1 presents an
interest for mechanical, electrical, and raw ingredient failure modes
when xo12. (c) In WS2 and WS3, we can see that x48 is likely to
present the mechanical failure mode, and for xo7 the rest of the
primary failure modes are presented. (d) In WS4 and WS5, we can
see that for x49, electrical failure mode and human error,
respectively, are likely to appear, whereas for xo9 the rest of the
primary failure modes in these workstations are presented. (e) For
line level and for WS6, we can see that xo15 first shows the
mechanical, and then the operator and electrical failure modes.
6. Conclusions
In this manuscript we exhibited the methodology to classify
the primary failure modes in categories based on failure data of a
bread production line covering a period of 746 continuous
working days. Then, we estimated the probabilities of failure
causes for the bread production line, applying the chi-square
goodness of fit test at the workstation and line level. Based on
multinomial distribution, we presented the models that can be
predicting the causes of the next m short-term breakdowns
of the line. Furthermore, we drew numerical examples that affect
the efficiency and maintenance policy of the production line. We
found that (a) the failures due to human errors and raw
557
ingredients are 25.06% and 5.35%, respectively, which is about
1/3 of all failures are due to insufficient operation management
policies, independent of the equipment’s function of the line that
we can confront it with appropriate operations management.
Maximizing the operator’s skills and knowledge of the equipment
with adequate training for their use is needed. Confronting
production problems requires equipment-conscious operators
who have the ability to discover and correct abnormalities. Also,
they must maintain the equipment in optimal condition in order
to increase operating effectiveness of the line. Furthermore, there
will be sufficient quality control management at receipt of the raw
ingredients. (b) The mechanical and pneumatic failures are 41.1%
and 3.08%, respectively, which is about 1/2 of all failures are of a
mechanical cause. (c) The electrical and electronic failures are
15.8% and 8.1%, respectively, which is about 1/4 are of an electrical
cause. (d) Therefore, the technical department will take into
consideration that the failures of mechanical nature are twice that
of the failures of electrical nature and must be prepared to
confront these failures with the suitable maintenance staff with a
variety of skills and tools e.g. spare parts, training programmes,
maintenance programmes, workshop, motivation, etc.
References
[1] Mobley RK. An introduction to predictive maintenance. 2nd ed. USA:
Butterworth-Heinemann; 2002.
[2] Smith JD. Reliability, maintainability and risk: practical methods for
engineering. 6th ed. USA: Butterworth-Heinemann; 2001.
[3] Seifoddini S, Djassemi M. The effect of reliability consideration on the
application of quality index. Comput Ind Eng 2001;40(1–2):65–77.
[4] Tajiri M, Gotoh F. TPM implementation: a Japanese approach. NY: McGraw-
Hill; 1992.
[5] Tsarouhas P. Implementation of total productive maintenance in food
industry: a case study. J Qual Maint Eng 2007;13(1):5–18.
[6] Van Der Duyn Schouten FA, Vanneste SG. Two simple control policies for a
multicomponent maintenance system. Oper Res 1993;41:1125–36.
[7] Jeon G, Leep HR, Parsei HR. Cellular manufacturing system based on new
similarity coefficient which considers alternative routes during machine
failure. Comput Ind Eng 1998;34(1):21–36.
[8] Whyte GA, Bytheway A. Factors affecting information systems’ success. Int J
Serv Ind Manage 1996;7(1):74–93.
[9] Warburton D, Strutt JE, Allsop K. Reliability-prediction procedures for
mechanical components at design stage. Proc Inst Mech Eng 1998;212(Part
E):213–24.
[10] Montague DF. Process risk evaluation—what method use? Reliab Eng Syst Saf
1990;29:37–45.
[11] Barabady J. Reliability and maintainability analysis of crushing plants in
Jajarm Bauxite Mine of Iran. In: Proceedings of the annual reliability and
maintainability symposium, USA, 2005. p. 109–115.
[12] Diallo M, Perreval H, Quillot A. Manufacturing cell design with flexible
routing capability in presence of unreliable machines. Int J Prod Econ
2001;74(1–3):175–82.
[13] Wang Y, Jia Y, Yu J, Yi S. Failure probabilistic model of CNC lathes. Reliab Eng
Syst Saf 1999;65(1):307–14.
[14] Liberopoulos G, Tsarouhas P. Systems analysis speeds up Chipita’s food
processing line. Interfaces 2002;32(3):62–76.
[15] Liberopoulos G, Tsarouhas P. Reliability analysis of an automated pizza
processing line. J Food Eng 2005;69(1):79–96.
[16] Hayter JA. Probability and statistics for engineers and scientists. 2nd ed.
Belmont, CA: Duxbury; 2002.