IE 443: Industrial Safety and

Maintenance

Topic 4: Maintainability and

Availability Analysis
 Maintainability
 Is a probability of carrying out a successful
repair action within a given time.

 Measures the ease and speed with which a

system can be restored to operational status
after a failure.

 Is the process of establishing a best design a

product or a facility for ease of maintenance.
 Maintainability
 Maintainability analysis is somehow similar
to system reliability analysis BUT the
random variable to be established in
maintainability is time-to-repair (TTR) and
not the time-to-failure (TTF).

 Maintainability analysis is carried out to

establish the tasks that are required to keep a
product in operational condition.
 Maintainability Prediction
 Is the method of establishing the time that a
failed component will take to be repaired.

 Provides time-based information regarding how

long it will take to repair or service a product.

 It assigns a value (in minutes or hours) and the

number of personnel required to accomplish a
task
 Maintainability description
 Maintainability of a system reflects the
ease, accuracy, safety, and economy
with which the maintenance of a system
can be carried out.

 It is a function of the way the system is

designed and is related to the time required
and resources needed for system
maintenance.
 Maintainability description
 It indicates the probability that a failed item will
be restored to operational effectiveness within a
given period of time when repair action is
performed in accordance with the prescribed
procedures.

 The best indicators of maintainability are

therefore MTTR (mean time to repair), personnel
labour hours, maintenance frequencies,
maintenance costs and volume of related logistic
support.
 Maintainability description
 Maintainability is an inherent characteristic
of system or product design.

 A system should be designed such that it

can be maintained without large investments
of time, cost, or other resources and without
adversely affecting the mission of that
system.
 Maintainability description
Maintainability Maintenance

Is the ability of an item Constitutes a series of

to be maintained actions to be taken to
restore or retain an
item in an effective
operational state
Is a design parameter Is a result of design
 Maintainability description
 Maintainability can also be defined as a
characteristic in design that can be
expressed in terms of maintenance
frequency factors, maintenance ‘times’
(i.e., elapsed times and labour-hours),
and maintenance cost.
 Maintainability Factors
 Maintainability requires the consideration of
many different factors:
 MTBM-mean time between maintenance,
which includes both scheduled and
unscheduled maintenance requirements.
 MTBR-mean time between replacement of an
item due to a maintenance action.
 M-mean active maintenance time.
 Mct-mean corrective maintenance time,
equivalent to mean time to repair (MTTR).
 Maintainability Factors – cont.
 Mpt-mean preventive maintenance time

 Mdct-median active corrective maintenance time

 Mdpt-median active preventive maintenance time

 MTTRg-geometric mean time to repair

 Mmax-maximum active corrective maintenance time

 MDT-maintenance downtime

 MMH/OH - maintenance manhours per equipment

operating hour
 Maintainability Factors – cont.
 Cost/OH-maintenance cost per equipment operating
hour

 Cost/MA-maintenance cost per maintenance action

 Turnaround time (TAT) - that element of maintenance

time needed to service, repair, and/or check out an item
for recommitment

 Self Test thoroughness - the scope, depth, and

accuracy of testing

 Fault isolation accuracy - accuracy of equipment

diagnostic routines in per­cent
 Analysis of Maintainability Components

 Maintainability, defined in the broadest

sense, can be measured in terms of:
 elapsed times,

 personnel labour-hour rates,

 maintenance frequencies,

 maintenance costs, and

 related logistic support factors.

Maintenance Elapsed-Time Factors
 Maintenance time is made up of the
individual task times associated with the
required corrective and preventive
maintenance actions for a given system.

 Maintainability is a measure of the ease

and rapidity with which a system can be
maintained, and is measured in terms of
the time required to perform maintenance
tasks.
Mean corrective maintenance time (Mct)
 Mean corrective maintenance time (Mct)

Table 4.1 Elapsed corrective maintenance times for 50 individual

repair maintenance actions

40 58 43 45 63 83 75 66 93 92
71 52 55 64 37 62 72 97 76 75
75 64 48 39 69 71 46 59 68 64
67 41 54 30 53 48 83 33 50 63
86 74 51 72 87 37 57 59 65 63
Mean corrective maintenance time (Mct)
 Table 4.1 includes data covering a sample of 50
corrective maintenance repair actions.

 Each of the times indicated represents the completion

of one corrective maintenance cycle shown in Figure
4.1

 The arithmetic mean is determined as follows:

n

 Mct i
3,095
Mct  i 1
  61.9
n 50
Mean corrective maintenance time (Mct)
 When determining the mean corrective
maintenance time Mct for a specific sample
population of maintenance repair actions, the use
of the equation above is appropriate.
 However the following equation has a wider
application

Mct 
 ( )( Mct )
i i

 i

where i is the failure rate of the individual (ith)

element of the item
Mean corrective maintenance time (Mct)

 Note: Mct considers only active

maintenance time or that time which is
spent working directly on the system.

 Logistics delay time and administrative

delay time are not included.
Mean preventive maintenance time (Mpt)

 Mpt is the mean elapsed time to perform

scheduled maintenance on an item, and is
expressed as:

  fpt  Mpt 
i i
Mpt 
 fpt i

Where:
•fpti is the frequency of the individual (ith) pm
action per system operating hour, and
Mpti is the elapsed time required for the ith
maintenance action.
Median active corrective maintenance time
(Mdct)
 The median maintenance time is that value which
divides all of the downtime values so that 50%
are equal to or less than the median and 50% are
equal to or greater than the median.

 The median will usually give the best average

location of the data sample.

 The median for a normal distribution is the same

as the mean, while the median in a log-normal
distribution is the same as the geometric mean.
 Median active corrective
maintenance time (Mdct)

 Mdct is calculated as:

  log Mct 
i

Mdct  anti log i 1

n
 Median active preventive maintenance
time (Mdpt )

 The median active preventive maintenance time

is determined using the same approach as for
calculating Mdct.

 Mdpt is expressed as:

  fpt  log Mpt 

i i
M pt  anti log
d
 fpt i
 Mean active maintenance time (M)
 It is the average elapsed time required to perform
scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.

 It excludes logistics and administrative delay

time, and is expressed as:

M 
   Mct    fpt  Mpt 
  fpt
where  is the corrective maintenance rate or failure
rate and fpt is the preventive maintenance rate.
 Maximum active corrective
maintenance time (Mmax)

 Is the value of downtime below which a

specified percent of all maintenance
actions can be expected to be completed.

 Is related to the log-normal distribution,

and the 90th or 95th percentile point is
generally taken as the specified value.
Max.active corrective maint. time (Mmax)
 It is expressed as:
 ____________ 
M max  anti log  log Mct  Z log Mcti 
 
• where log Mct bar is the mean of the logarithms of Mcti,
• Z is the value corresponding to the specific percentage
point at which Mmax is defined.

 log Mcti is the standard deviation of sample logarithms of

average repair times - Mcti
The Standard Deviation of log Mcti
is given by:

2
 N 
   log MCti  
N
 
  log MCti 
2 i 1
N
i 1
 log MCti 
N 1
Max.active corrective maint. time (Mmax)

 The value of Z is given by:

Risk Confidence Z Upper limit [min.]

5% 95% 1.65 65.72
10% 90% 1.28 64.89
15% 85% 1.04 64.35
20% 80% 0.84 63.89
 Logistic Delay Time (LDT)
 Refers to downtime expended as a result of
waiting for:
 spare part,
 availability of an item of test equipment in order to
perform maintenance,
 transportation,
 using a facility required for maintenance, and so on.

 LDT does not include active maintenance time,

but does constitute a major element of total
maintenance downtime (MDT).
 Administrative Delay Time (ADT)
 Refers to that portion of downtime during which
maintenance is delayed for reasons of an
administrative nature, such as:
 personnel assignment priority,
 labour strike,
 organizational constraint, and so on.

 ADT does not include active maintenance time,

but often constitutes a significant element of total
maintenance downtime (MDT).
 Maintenance downtime (MDT)
 Constitutes the total elapsed time required
to repair and restore a system to full
operating status.

 It includes M, LDT, and ADT

 The average value is calculated from the

elapsed times for each function and the
associated frequencies (similar to the
approach used in determining M).
 Maintenance Labour-Hour
Factors
 The previous presentation slides focused on
the elapsed times

 Although elapsed times are extremely

important in the performance of maintenance,
one must also consider the maintenance
labour-hours expended in the process
Maintenance Labour-Hour Factors
 Elapsed times can be reduced by
applying additional human resources in
the accomplishment of specific tasks.
 This may turn out to be an expensive
trade-off
 It is important to obtain the proper
balance between elapsed time, labour
time, and personnel skills at a minimum
maintenance cost
 Factors to be Considered in
Maintenance Labour-Hour
 Maintenance manhour per system
operating hour (MMH/OH)
 Maintenance manhour per cycle of
system operation (MMH/cycle)
 Maintenance manhour per month
(MMH/month)
 Maintenance manhour per
maintenance action (MMH/MA).
 Factors to be Considered in
Maintenance Labour-Hour
 Any of these factors can be specified in
terms of mean values
 For example, MMHc = mean corrective
maintenance manhours, expressed as
    MMH  i i
MMHc 
 i

where i is the failure rate of the ith item

Maintenance Frequency
Factors
Mean time b/n maintenance (MTBM):
 is the average time between all maintenance actions
(corrective and preventive) and can be calculated as
1
MTBM 
1 1
MTBMu MTBMs

MTBMu is the mean interval of unscheduled maintenance

and MTBMs is for the scheduled maintenance.

The reciprocals of MTBMu and MTBMs constitute the

maintenance rates in terms of maintenance actions per
hour of system operation.
 Mean time b/n maintenance (MTBM):
 MTBMu  MTBF, assuming a combined
failure rate (consideration of primary
inherent failures, dependent failures,
manufacturing defects, operator and
maintenance induced failures, and so on)
 MTBM, is a major parameter in
determining system availability and overall
effectiveness
 Mean time b/n replacement (MTBR).
 It is a factor of MTBM, and refers to replacement
of an item, therefore, it is a major parameter in
determining spare-part requirements
 Sometimes corrective and preventive actions are
accomplished without generating the
requirement for the replacement of a part.
 Sometimes item replacements are required,
which in turn necessitates the availability of a
spare part and an inventory requirement
 MTBR is a key parameter in determining logistic
support requirements
Maintenance Cost Factors
Maintenance Cost Factors
 maintenance cost constitutes a major
segment of total life-cycle cost
 maintenance costs are impacted by
design decisions made throughout the
early stages of system development
 it is essential that total life-cycle cost be
considered as a major design
parameter
 Maintenance Cost Factors
 When considering maintenance cost, the
following cost-related indices be
appropriate as criteria in system design:
 Cost per maintenance action ($/MA)
 Maintenance cost per system operating
hour ($/OH)
 Maintenance cost per month ($/month)
 Maintenance cost per mission or mission
segment ($/mission)
 The ratio of maintenance cost to total life-
cycle cost
 Availability Analysis

a measure of system readiness (i.e, the

degree, percent, or probability that a system
will be ready or available when required for
use)
 Inherent Availability (Ai)
 Probability that a system when used under
stated conditions in an ideal support
environment will operate satisfactorily at any
point in time as required.
 It excludes preventive or scheduled
maintenance actions, logistics delay time, and
administrative delay time, and is expressed as:

MTBF
Ai 
MTBF  Mct
Achieved Availability (Aa)
 probability that a system when used under
stated conditions in an ideal support
environment will operate satisfactorily at any
point in time.
 This definition is similar to the definition for Ai
except that PM is included.
 It excludes logistics and administrative delay
time and is expressed by:

MTBM
Aa 
MTBM  M
Operational Availability (A0)
 probability that a piece of equipment,
when used in actual operational
environment under specified conditions
will operate satisfactorily when called
upon.

MTTF
Ao =
MTTF + MTTR + MWT