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Reliability centered maintenance using system dynamics approach

Conference Paper · June 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ICIT.2015.7125379

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 Reliability centered maintenance using System
Dynamics Approach
Hadi A. Khorshidi
School of Applied Science and Engineering
Faculty of Science, Monash University
Australia
hadi.khorshidi@monash.edu
Abstract—This paper presents a system dynamic modeling
technique for reliability centered maintenance (RCM). It
provides a simulation model to analyze the impact of
maintenance strategies such as preventive and corrective
maintenance on system availability. Also, maintenance cost is
associated with the model to have an optimization view for a
manufacturing system. As a result, the optimal decisions can be
made based on the results of the model. In addition, sensitivity
analysis has been conducted for various parameters in the
simulation model. The results were compared and discussed for
various conditions.
Keywords— Reliability centered maintenance (RCM), System
Dynamics; Maintenance strategies; Reliability value; Optimization;
System evaluation
I. INTRODUCTION
Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) is defined in IEC
standard [1] as “method to identify and select failure
management policies to efficiently and effectively achieve the
required safety, availability and economy of operation”. RCM
is a systematic decision making process to keep balance
between preventive and corrective maintenance actions and
select cost-effective maintenance plans in order to improve the
reliability [2]. Also, reliability has been widely known as a
critical criterion for system design, operation, and maintenance
[3]. System dynamics approach is used in different areas such
as social science, economics, politics, engineering,
manufacturing, and management to simulate the system
interactions. Also, its capability in capturing dynamic behavior
of complex operations has been verified [4]. In this paper,
RCM is modelled by system dynamics’ tools to employ its
ability for reliability evaluation through using various
maintenance strategies. In fact, the dynamic behavior of the
system reliability is simulated through system dynamics’
package. The system that is considered is a binary system in
which there are functioning and failure states. An example is
suggested to investigate the simulated model. Software iThink
9.0.3 is used to model the system.
II. SYSTEM DYNAMICS
System dynamics is first introduced by Prof. Forrester [5]
in 1950s in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This
methodology is based on the system thinking concept to find
978-1-4799-7800-7/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Indra Gunawan, M. Yousef Ibrahim
School of Engineering and Information Technology
Federation University, Gippsland campus
Churchill, Australia
indra.gunawan@federation.edu.au
yousef.ibrahim@federation.edu.au
the causal relationship between the effective elements. It
models a system over time which is the main variable to define
the dynamical behavior of the system. The system dynamics’
art is to represent feedback process by Causal Loop Diagrams
(CLDs) and stock and flow structures to predict the future
behavior of the system [6].
A. Causal loop diagram
CLD is a useful way to capture the system structure, and
feedback processes [7]. In a causal diagram, elements are
connected by arrows to denote the impacts on each other. A
positive arrow shows element A influences positively on
element B where B is increased or decreased by increasing or
decreasing in A respectively. Likewise, a negative arrow shows
a negative relationship in which element B is increased or
decreased inversely by decreasing and increasing in element A
respectively [8].
These arrows can construct a CLD to represent feedback
process among elements through causal loops. The causal
loops also can be positive (reinforcing) or negative (balancing).
There is an even number of negative arrows in a positive loop
which is associated with an exponential growth. On the other
hand, there is an odd number of negative arrows in a negative
loop which tends to reach a balance point [9]. After developing
a CLD, causal relationship should be converted into stock and
flow structure.
B. Stock and flow structure
Stock and flow structures are another tool to represent
system structure and feedback process. In these structures,
mathematical equations are used for causal relationships to
simulate the system behavior [6, 8]. Stock (level) is a variable
that represents the quantity at one specific time which has been
cumulated since the past. However, flow is a rate variable that
shows change rate over a time interval [5]. In the software,
stock is shown by a rectangle and flow is represented by a
valve that might go in or out of the stock. Also, there are some
auxiliary variables which are effective on the stock and flow
variables. They are shown by circles in the simulation model.
1932
 III. MODELING stable situation. This trend is like as beginning periods of life in
First of all, the probability that a system is in functioning bathtub curve [12], and goal seeking pattern of behavior in
state which is known as availability should be investigated. As system dynamics [6].
it is mentioned before, the system is in binary state. Figure 1 1: Av ailability
1: 1

λ10
1

1 0
1: 1
µ01

1
Figure 1. State transition in the system 1

shows how a system transits from working state (state 1) to 1: 1

0.00 3.00 6.00 9.00 12.00

failed state (state 0) and vice versa where λ10 is the failure rate, Page 1 Time
Av ailability trend
5:07 PM Tue, 11 Mar 2014

and µ01 is the repair rate.

Figure 4. Availability trend
The probability of being in each state (j) at time t (Pj(t))
follows the differential equations (1) and (2) [10, 11]. TABLE 1. AVAILABILITY MEASURE IN TIME PERIODS
Time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
dP0(t)/dt = -μ01× P0(t)+λ10× P1(t) (1) A 1 .91 .86 .83 .81 .8 .79 .79 .78 .78 .78
dP1(t)/dt = - λ10× P1(t)+μ01× P0(t) (2)
Model equation is used in iThink package for availability is
where P1(t) shows the availability, and P1(t)=1- P0(t) because as Eq. 3.
the system is binary. Also, initial conditions of the system are
P1(t)=1, P0(t)=0. This process can be demonstrated by CLD as A(t) = (μ01× (1-A(t-1))- λ10× A(t-1))×dt; Initial A=1 (3)
figure 2. where A is availability, and Initial A means initial value of the
Failure rate availability.
Repair rate

Preventive Maintenance
Corrective Maintenance
+ +

Function Availability Failure

Failure rate
Repair rate
+ -
Figure 2. Causal loop for availability
+ +
As can be seen, failure and function have negative and
positive effects on availability respectively. However, Function Availability Failure
availability positively influences on these two elements + -
according to Eq. 2. Also, there are two causal loops. The loop
between function and availability is positive, and the loop Figure 5. Causal loop for improvement strategies
between failure and availability is a negative one. In addition, There are some improvement strategies which influence on
increasing the failure and repair rates leads to increase in availability. These strategies, that are also known as
failure and functioning states respectively. The stock and flow reliability/availability allocation, can reduce failure rate or
structure can be developed based on CLD as figure 3.

Correctiv e Maintenance Action

Repair rate Failure rate

Prev entiv e Maintenance Action
Av ailability
~
ef f ect of CM ef f ect of PM

Function Failure Initial repair rate Initial f ailure rate

Figure 3. Stock and flow structure for availability

The model is run with failure rate equal to 0.1 and repair Repaire rate Failure rate

rate 0.35. Figure 4 shows availability variation over time. Also,

TABLE 1 provides availability measures for 10 time periods. Av ailability
Accordingly, the availability of the system decreases to reach a

Function Failure

1933 Figure 6. Stock and flow structure for improvement strategies

increase repair rate [13]. In figure 5, the impact of corrective level.
and preventive maintenance as improvement strategies on
repair and failure rates respectively is shown as CLD. TABLE 2 gives availability measures for the scenarios
through 10 time periods. It shows that the stable point for the
In corrective maintenance, the mean time to repair (MTTR) scenarios is different.
can be reduced by allocating more resource and manpower in TABLE 2. AVAILABILITY MEASURE FOR SCENARIOS
repair division. Since repair rate and MTTR have an inverse Time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
relationship (µ=1/MTTR), repair rates will be influenced. For
example, if the allocated resource and manpower for repair is (2) 1 .93 .9 .88 .88 .88 .88 .88 .88 .88 .88
doubled, it leads to shorten MTTR by half, and the repair rate (3) 1 .94 .9 .87 .85 .84 .84 .83 .83 .83 .83
is multiplied by 2. Consequently, there is a linear relationship
between corrective maintenance action and repair rate. Also in (4) 1 .94 .92 .91 .91 .9 .9 .9 .9 .9 .9
preventive maintenance, there are replacement policies and
technical actions that increase the mean time between failures According to figure 7, using more improvement actions
(MTBF). Since failure rate and MTBF have an inverse leads to the higher availability value. However, employing
relationship (λ=1/MTBF), repair rates will be reduced. Figure 6 maintenance strategies impose cost on the system. As a result,
an optimization viewpoint is useful to make decision on
shows these relationships in stock and flow structure.
applying improvement strategies. System availability and
The elements as effect of CM and PM quantify the impact system cost should be considered concurrently in evaluating
of changing on corrective and preventive maintenance effect of maintenance strategies.
respectively which is shown by equations 4 and 5.
Effect_of_CM = Corrective_Maintenance_action (4)
Effect_of_PM = 1-0.005×Preventive_Maintenance_action(5) Preventive Maintenance
Corrective Maintenance
+
where Corrective_Maintenance_action is represented by a +
number denotes how many times repair resources increase or Repair rate
Failure rate Maintenance Cost
decrease, and Preventive_Maintenance_action is represented
by a percentage of replacement has been done. Also, repair and + +
failure rates are updated by equation 6 and 7.
Function Availability Failure
Repair_rate = Initial_repair_rate × Effect_of_CM (6) + -

Failure_rate = Initial_failure_rate × Effect_of_PM (7) Net value Cost

where initial amounts of repair and failure rates are 0.35 and
0.1 respectively as previous. Figure 8. Causal loop in optimization view

Four scenarios have been considered. The first scenario

shows no change on corrective and preventive maintenance
policy. In the second one, the allocated resource and manpower
for corrective maintenance becomes twice, it means CM cost
Corrective_Maintenance_action is equal to 2. In the third Correctiv e Maintenance Action
Prev entiv e Maintenance Action
scenario, there is fifty percent replacement rate that it means
Preventive_Maintenance_action is 50 percent. The last ~
ef f ect of CM ef f ect of PM
PM cost

scenario includes two changes simultaneously. As it can be

seen in figure 7, improvement actions promote the availability Initial repair rate Initial f ailure rate

Repaire rate Failure rate

Av ailability : 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
Maintenance cost
1: 1

Transition to working Transition to f ailure

Av ailability
1

2
3 4
4 4 4 Function Failure
1: 1
2 2 2

3
1 3 3

Reliability v alue Cost

1 Net v alue
1

1: 1
0.00 3.00 6.00 9.00 12.00
Page 1 Time 5:39 PM Tue, 11 Mar 2014 Perf ormance rate

Av ailability trend
Figure 9. Final stock and flow structure
Figure 7. Availability trend in four scenarios

1934
 Figure 8 adds cost in CLD of the whole system. In this
view, net value is a criterion which is influenced by availability
and cost, and it can be considered to analyze improvement
actions. As it is presented, corrective and preventive
maintenance actions have both positive and negative impacts
on net value via availability and cost respectively.
This CLD can be transferred into stock and flow structure
as shown in figure 9. For corrective maintenance, there is a
linear relationship with slope 2 as Eq. 8. If the allocated
resource and manpower for repair becomes twice, the CM cost
becomes double to be 4, and similarly if repair resource be
shorten by half, the CM cost becomes half to be 1. However,
there is an exponential relationship between preventive
maintenance and its cost, it means that the PM cost increases
exponentially by increasing in the replacement percentage as
Eq. 9.
CM_cost = 2×Corrective_Maintenance_action
PM_cost = EXP(0.01×Preventive_Maintenance_action) (9)
Maintenance cost is sum of CM and PM costs, and the cost
is equal to the maintenance cost. On the other hand, reliability
value which is employed in [14-17] is used to make the
availability homogeneous with the cost. In manufacturing
systems, the system can generate income as much as it is
available. Therefore, there is a relationship between availability
and income generation. It provides an opportunity to translate
system availability into money. As a result, the performance
rate is considered as the income that can be generated during a
time period when the system is available. In this model, it is
assumed 25. Also, the reliability value is calculated by Eq. 10.
Reliability_value = Availability×Performance_rate (10)
not reasonable. The cost of the scenarios 1-4 are 3, 5, 3.65, and
5.65 respectively. Net value amounts for the scenarios are
brought in TABLE 3 through 10 time periods.
TABLE 3. NET VALUE MEASURE FOR SCENARIOS
Time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
(1) 22 19.95 18.59 17.68 17.09 16.69 16.43 16.25 16.13 16.06 16.01
(2) 20 18.10 17.11 16.59 16.32 16.18 16.11 16.07 16.05 16.04 16.03
(3) 21.35 19.78 18.71 17.98 17.49 17.15 16.92 16.77 16.66 16.59 16.54
(4) 19.35 17.90 17.12 16.70 16.47 16.35 16.29 16.25 16.24 16.23 16.22
After time period 2, scenario 3 can generate the most net
value for the system. The area below the diagram of each
scenario shows which scenario is the best one to select by
decision makers as Eq. 12. The higher amount of area denotes
the better scenario for the system.
(8)
Area = ∫Net_value(t)dt =∑ Net_value(t)×Δt (12)
According to this, the area value for the scenarios through
10 time periods is as follow: scenario (1)=192.88; scenario
(2)=184.6; scenario (3)=196.39; scenario (4)=185.12.
Therefore, the scenarios have been ranked based on the net
value in the order of 3, 1, 4, and 2. Scenario (3) is the best one
i.e. improving preventive maintenance is the optimum strategy
in this case.
Finally, two different conditions on system cost have been
analyzed. These two are if the cost of both corrective and
preventive maintenance actions have been increased in double
or reduced in half. These variations might happen in system
cost based on salary and component price changes. Therefore,
Net Value: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -

As a result, reliability value is obtained as income which is 1: 19

1
money like cost. Therefore, reliability value can be
differentiated from cost to have net value of the system as Eq.
11. 3

Net_value = Reliability_value - Cost (11) 1: 15

1

3 1
2 3 1
3

Net Value: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
1: 23 2 2 2
4
4 4 4
1: 11
1 0.00 3.00 6.00 9.00 12.00
Page 1 Time 4:09 PM Mon, 24 Mar 2014

3 Figure 11. Net value trend when cost is double

1: 19
Net Value: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 -
2
1: 24
1
3 1
4
3
3
2 4 1 4 4
2 1 2
1: 16
0.00 3.00 6.00 9.00 12.00 3
2
Page 1 Time 4:50 PM Wed, 19 Mar 2014
1: 21
Av ailability trend 4
4 4 4
2
Figure 10. Net value trend in four scenarios 1
3 2 2
3 3

This value is helpful to find out which scenario is 1

1
appropriate for the system based on reliability and cost. Figure 1: 18

10 provides a comparison view on net value for Page 1

0.00 3.00 6.00
Time
9.00 12.00
4:23 PM Mon, 24 Mar 2014

abovementioned scenarios. As it can be seen, the scenario 4 is

not the best one when cost is added in evaluation. Because the Figure 12. Net value trend when cost is half
value that scenario 4 generates in comparison with its cost is

1935
 the impact of these variations on four scenarios, and
subsequently on optimal decision can be investigated. Net
value trend of the scenarios for cost increase is shown in figure
11.
In this particular case, doing nothing is preferred as optimal
decision because improvement strategies impose much more
cost on the system. Also, net value trend for cost reduction is
presented in figure 12.
In this condition, doing nothing is not reasonable. As you
can see, the 4th scenario is the optimal solution after time
period 3 because the improvement strategies are not too much
costly anymore. These two conditions show the impact of cost
and price on system operation.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new methodology was introduced using
system dynamics approach to model maintenance plans in
terms of reliability. In this methodology, a CLD is drawn to
present the causal relationship between the main elements.
Also, a stock and flow structure is developed to simulate the
proposed system. Both CLD and stock and flow structure are
introduced in the context step by step. As it is mentioned in
introduction, RCM aims to make decision on corrective and
preventive maintenance actions in an economic way in order to
improve system reliability. Accordingly in this study, various
maintenance strategies have been applied in the model, and
their impact is analyzed on the system’s availability and cost.
As a result, the strategies have been ranked in an optimal view
to identify the best strategy.
This paper contributes to better understanding of the
dynamic behavior of system reliability via system dynamics
methodology. It allows all players, such as operation managers
and maintenance managers, to find out how they influence on
the dynamic behavior of the entire system [18]. Benefit of
system dynamics models lies in using simple diagrams and
their underlying mathematical expressions to model system
behavior. This approach removes many of the ambiguities stem
from the conventional decision analysis and system evaluation
techniques. Therefore in this paper, a visual simulation model
is developed that provides an opportunity to consider more
effective parameters simply in system modelling.
Since system dynamics approach has the capability to
simulate complex systems, more elements which are effective
on system reliability can be added to the model for further
investigation. Also, through this methodology, redundancy
allocation can be applied for system reliability improvement.
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