Reliability Curve, Understand the
Behavior of a Machine
Reading time: 5 min
Among suppliers and resellers, equipment breaks down all the time, and this
generates exorbitant maintenance costs and even terminations of millionaire
contracts. Most of the time, these failures happen as a result of time , where the
probability of their occurrence will differ between the stages of the life cycle,
whether its a piece of machinery and equipment or an operation. The curve that
demonstrates this probability of failure over time is known as the bathtub curve (or
failure rate curve).
RELIABILITY CURVE
‘cHupH00D ‘ADULTHOOD WEAR DOWNUsually, an equipment has, at the beginning of its useful life, a high failure rate, due
to manufacturing problems, improper installation, defective components, incorrect
assembly. Over time, these faults are corrected, and the equipment enters a level of
stability. Breaks, when they occur, are random. After a certain period, according to
the conditions of use and aggressiveness of the environment in which the equipment
is located, the failure rates begin to increase, due to the wear and tear of the
components.
How does the graph work?
The identification of the failure rate curve of a component or an asset, helps to
control the maintenance schedule, especially controlling the health of the
equipment, warranty time and reliability in the choices of necessary measurements
for the increase in the availability of the systems under management.
Analyzing the reliability curve, we can identify 3 distinct points: Rate of failure
decreasing for infant mortality; constant failure rate for service life; and increasing
failure rate without limit on wear.Infant mortality: Dur
g this phase, failures occur due to some manufacturing
problems, installation defects, design errors, incorrect assembly and inadequate
components. We have a high failure rate at the beginning of the equipment's
operation.
Useful life: Over time, these faults are corrected and the assets enter a level of
stability, with a stable error rate and, when they occur, the faults are random. In this
period, the number of failures is less than in the infant mortality stage.
Wear period: According to the conditions of use and deterioration of the
environment in which it is found, the equipment starts to show a considerable
increase in the proportion of errors. This happens due to the wear of the
components.
We can draw several reflections on this, for example, the fact that the equipment
has a phase of infant mortality clarifies something that at first glance could seem
paradoxical: Preventive maintenance can increase the rate of equipment failures.
When equipment is still in adulthood, an intervention carried out at a time of smooth
functioning, even if it prolongs the life of the equipment, exposes the asset toa
peak of higher failure rates, due to infant mortality.Therefore, estimating the most suitable time to perform preventive maintenance is
difficult, unless the condition of the equipment is monitored. However, this already
characterizes predictive maintenance, and no longer preventive maintenance.
3 methods to reduce failure during the infant mortality period
Three methods are suggested to reduce failures during the infant mortality period:
1. Debugging
Due to the high failure rate in the initial period, debugging tests are widely accepted
as an approach to detect failures before leaving the factory until the product
population reaches a low failure rate. Defective equipment is discarded or minimally
repaired, if possible. Ideal for suppliers to obtain concise feedback on their
equipment before it reaches customers with an anomaly or problem.
A major problem associated with testing is deciding exactly how long and at what
level of assembly the tools should be tested, for this there are technologies and
sensors that collect data from the equipment in real time, providing maintenance
teams with a complete overview of the health of these active within minutes.
2. Acceptance and reliability
Acceptance tests can be periodic assessments of the reliability of the production
material, especially when any tools, parts or other characteristics undergo any
alteration or change. Generally, while there are misleading risks of accelerated
testing, the benefits of such testing can be critical
3. Health and quality controlQuality control is related to the identification and processing of information of
machine variables to avoid the occurrence of serious failures. For example, vibration
analysis can be used to detect possible problems when a process is getting out of
control and take the corresponding actions before failure occurs.
Technology to your advantage
Of course, monitoring the useful lives of assets and their behavior over time, must be
done by a complete management tool. There are many softwares that guarantee
the manager a wide and real-time view of the maintenance situation.
With a technological solution specialized in asset monitoring, it is possible to analyze
the cost of maintenance and interventions, for future analysis of the costs obtained
It is also feasible to control the scheduling of work orders to organize maintenance,
distribute the workload and enhance the team’s performance.
In this scenario, HSaaS (Hardware Software a Service) has emerged as a practical
model for the implementation of more effective forms of maintenance, because it
provides in a single service the link between what needs to be measured in the
physical world and the experience that the digital world provides.
Understand hardware as the sensor to collect equipment data in real time, and
software as a way to process this information and provide maintenance teams with
daily feedback on the health and availability of your assets.
Having information to understand the bathtub curve and monitor your assets is one
of the benefits that technology can bring. Check out other befits on our website, or
request a demo below.
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