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Article
Publication date: 24 April 2007

Pawan Gupta, Arvind Kumar Lal, Rajendra Kumar Sharma and Jai Singh

The purpose of this paper is to compute reliability, availability, and mean time before failure of the process of a plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant consisting of a (K, N) system…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compute reliability, availability, and mean time before failure of the process of a plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant consisting of a (K, N) system for various choices of failure and repair rates of sub‐systems. This plant consists of eight sub‐systems.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper the Chapman‐Kolmogorov differential equations are formed using mnemonic rule from the transition diagram of the plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant. The governing differential equations are solved using matrix method in order to find the reliability of the system with the help of MATLAB software. The same system of differential equations is solved numerically using Runge‐Kutta fourth order method to validate the results obtain by MATLAB.

Findings

The findings in the paper are an analysis of reliability, availability and mean time before failure of plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant has been carried out.

Practical implications

This paper proposes matrix calculus method using MATLAB software to find out the reliability of the plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant. This approach can be implemented to find reliability of other manufacturing plants as well.

Originality/value

The findings suggest that the management of the plastic‐pipe manufacturing plant 's sensitive sub‐system is important to improve its performance.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 24 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 December 2020

Anil Kr. Aggarwal

This paper deals with the performance optimization and sensitivity analysis for crystallization system of a sugar plant.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper deals with the performance optimization and sensitivity analysis for crystallization system of a sugar plant.

Design/methodology/approach

Crystallization system comprises of five subsystems, namely crystallizer, centrifugal pump and sugar grader. The Chapman–Kolmogorov differential equations are derived from the transition diagram of the crystallization system using mnemonic rule. These equations are solved to compute reliability and steady state availability by putting the appropriate combinations of failure and repair rates using normalizing and initial boundary conditions. The performance optimization is carried out by varying number of generations, population size, crossover and mutation probabilities. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to analyze the effect of change in failure rates of each subsystem on availability, mean time to failure (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR).

Findings

The highest performance observed is 96.95% at crossover probability of 0.3 and sugar grader subsystem comes out to be the most critical and sensitive subsystem.

Originality/value

The findings of the paper highlights the optimum value of performance level at failure and repair rates for subsystems and also helps identify the most sensitive subsystem. These findings are highly beneficial for the maintenance personnel of the plant to plan the maintenance strategies accordingly.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 38 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 February 2015

Anil Aggarwal, Sanjeev Kumar and Vikram Singh

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to compute RAMD indices to measure and improve the performance of skim milk powder production system of a dairy plant under real…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to compute RAMD indices to measure and improve the performance of skim milk powder production system of a dairy plant under real working conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

The present work is carried out by developing performance model based on Markov birth-death process. The skim milk powder production system consists of six units. The first order governing differential equations are derived using the mnemonic rule and further solved to calculate RAMD indices i.e. reliability, availability, maintainability, dependability, MTBF, MTTR and dependability ratio for each subsystem of the system.

Findings

The subsystem SS1 comprising of chiller and cream separator is the most critical from maintenance point of view, as the reliability, availability, maintainability, dependability, MTBF and dependability ratio indices are low as compared to those of other subsystems of skim milk powder production system of the dairy plant.

Originality/value

The RAMD indices of the present work is very useful for finding the critical subsystem and its effect on the performance of the system working under real working conditions. Further, based on findings the maintenance priorities for various subsystems can be decided.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 April 2018

Subhash Malik and Puran Chand Tewari

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the formation of performance modeling and maintenance priorities for the water flow system (WFS) of a coal-based thermal power plant.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the formation of performance modeling and maintenance priorities for the water flow system (WFS) of a coal-based thermal power plant.

Design/methodology/approach

The system consists of five subsystems, i.e. condenser, condensate extraction pump, Low Pressure Heater, deaerator and boiler feed pump. The Chapman-Kolmogorov equations are generated on the basis of transition diagram and further solved recursively to obtain the performance modeling with the help of normalizing condition using Markov approach.

Findings

Availability matrices are formed with the help of different combinations of failures and repair rates of all subsystems. The performance of all subsystems is evaluated in terms of availability level achieved in availability matrices and plots of failure rates and repair rates of various subsystems. The maintenance priorities of various subsystems of WFS are decided on the basis of repair rate.

Originality/value

The adoption of both performance modeling and maintenance priorities decision by the management of thermal power plant will result in the enhancement of system availability and reduction in maintenance cost.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 35 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2022

Monika Saini, Drishty Goyal, Ashish Kumar and Rajkumar Bhimgonda Patil

The demand of sewage treatment plants is increasing day by day, especially in the countries like India. Biological and chemical unit of such sewage treatment plants are critical…

Abstract

Purpose

The demand of sewage treatment plants is increasing day by day, especially in the countries like India. Biological and chemical unit of such sewage treatment plants are critical and needs to be designed and developed to achieve desired level of reliability, maintainability and availability.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper investigates and optimizes the availability of biological and chemical unit of a sewage treatment plant. A novel mathematical model for this unit is developed using the Markovian birth-death process. A set of Chapman–Kolmogorov differential equations are derived for the model and a generalized solution is discovered using soft computing techniques namely genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO).

Findings

Nature-inspired optimization techniques results of availability function depicted that PSO outperforms GA. The optimum value of the availability of biological and chemical processing unit is 0.9324 corresponding to population size 100, the number of evolutions 300, mutation 0.6 and crossover 0.85 achieved using GA while PSO results reflect that optimum achieved availability is 0.936240 after 45 iterations. Finally, it is revealed that PSO outperforms than GA.

Research limitations/implications

This paper investigates and optimizes the availability of biological and chemical units of a sewage treatment plant. A novel mathematical model for this unit is developed using the Markovian birth-death process.

Originality/value

Availability model of biological and chemical units of a sewage treatment is developed using field failure data and judgments collected from the experts. Furthermore, availability of the system has been optimized to achieve desired level of reliability and maintainability.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 39 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2005

Pawan Gupta, Arvind Kumar Lal, Rajendra Kumar Sharma and Jai Singh

Proposes a method to compute reliability and long‐run availability of the main parts of the butter‐oil (melted butter) manufacturing plant. This manufacturing plant consists of…

Abstract

Purpose

Proposes a method to compute reliability and long‐run availability of the main parts of the butter‐oil (melted butter) manufacturing plant. This manufacturing plant consists of eight sub‐systems working in a series. Two sub‐systems, namely pump and chiller, are supported by stand‐by units with perfect switch‐over devices and the remaining six sub‐systems are prone to failure.

Design/methodology/approach

Mathematical formulation of the model is carried out using mnemonic rule for these six sub‐systems. Reliability, availability and MTBF of the serial process in the butter‐oil processing plant have been computed for various choices of failure and repair rates of sub‐systems of this plant.

Findings

Analysis of reliability, long‐run availability and mean time before failure of the butter‐oil manufacturing plant can help in increasing the production and quality of the butter‐oil.

Originality/value

Industrial implications of the results have also been briefly discussed.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 22 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 April 2020

Chandra Shekhar, Amit Gupta, Madhu Jain and Neeraj Kumar

The purpose of this paper is to present a sensitivity analysis of fault-tolerant redundant repairable computing systems with imperfect coverage, reboot and recovery process.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a sensitivity analysis of fault-tolerant redundant repairable computing systems with imperfect coverage, reboot and recovery process.

Design/methodology/approach

In this investigation, the authors consider the computing system having a finite number of identical working units functioning simultaneously with the provision of standby units. Working and standby units are prone to random failure in nature and are administered by unreliable software, which is also likely to unpredictable failure. The redundant repairable computing system is modeled as a Markovian machine interference problem with exponentially distributed failure rates and service rates. To excerpt the failed unit from the computing system, the system either opts randomized reboot process or leads to recovery delay.

Findings

Transient-state probabilities have been determined with which the authors develop various reliability measures, namely reliability/availability, mean time to failure, failure frequency, and so on, and queueing characteristics, namely expected number of failed units, the throughput of the system and so on, for the predictive purpose. To spectacle the practicability of the developed model, a numerical simulation, sensitivity analysis and so on for different parameters have also been done, and the results are summarized in the tables and graphs. The transient results are helpful to analyze the developing model of the system before having the stability of the system. The derived measures give direct insights into parametric decision-making.

Social implications

The conclusion has been drawn, and future scope is remarked. The present research study would help system analyst and system designer to make a better choice/decision in order to have the economical design and strategy based on the desired mean time to failure, reliability/availability of the systems and other queueing characteristics.

Originality/value

Different from previous investigations, this studied model provides a more accurate assessment of the computing system compared to uncertain environments based on sensitivity analysis.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 37 no. 6/7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 December 2019

Chandra Shekhar, Amit Kumar, Shreekant Varshney and Sherif I. Ammar

The internet of things and just-in-time are the embryonic model of innovation for the state-of-the-art design of the service system. This paper aims to develop a fault-tolerant…

Abstract

Purpose

The internet of things and just-in-time are the embryonic model of innovation for the state-of-the-art design of the service system. This paper aims to develop a fault-tolerant machining system with active and standby redundancy. The availability of the fault-tolerant redundant repairable system is a key concern in the successful deployment of the service system.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors cogitate a fault-tolerant redundant repairable system of finite working units along with warm standby unit provisioning. Working unit and standby unit are susceptible to random failures, which interrupt the quality-of-service. The system is also prone to common cause failure, which tends its catastrophe. The instantaneous repair of failed unit guarantees the increase in the availability of the unit/system. The time-to-repair by the single service facility for the failed unit follows the arbitrary distribution. For increasing the practicability of the studied model, the authors have also incorporated real-time machining practices such as imperfect coverage of the failure of units, switching failure of standby unit, common cause failure, reboot delay, switch over delay, etc.

Findings

For deriving the explicit expression for steady-state probabilities of the system, the authors use a supplementary variable technique for which the only required input is the Laplace–Stieltjes transform (LST) of the repair time distribution.

Research limitations/implications

For complex and multi-parameters distribution of repair time, derivation of performance measures is not possible. The authors prefer numerical simulation because of its importance in the application for real-time uses.

Practical implications

The stepwise recursive procedure, illustrative examples, and numerical results have been presented for the diverse category of repair time distribution: exponential (M), n-stage Erlang (Ern), deterministic (D), uniform (U(a,b)), n-stage generalized Erlang (GE[n]) and hyperexponential (HE[n]).

Social implications

Concluding remarks and future scopes have also been included. The studied fault-tolerant redundant repairable system is suitable for reliability analysis of a computer system, communication system, manufacturing system, software reliability, service system, etc.

Originality/value

As per the survey in literature, no previous published paper is presented with so wide range of repair time distribution in the machine repair problem. This paper is valuable for system design for reliability analysis of the fault-tolerant redundant repairable.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 37 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 March 2021

Amit Kumar and Pardeep Kumar

This paper presents the performance analysis of the automatic ticket vending machine (ATVM) through the functioning of its different hardware and software failures.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper presents the performance analysis of the automatic ticket vending machine (ATVM) through the functioning of its different hardware and software failures.

Design/methodology/approach

Frequent failures in the working of ATVM have been observed; therefore, the authors of the paper intend to analyze the performance measures of the same. Authors have developed a mathematical model based on different hardware and software failures/repairs, which may occur during the operation, with the help of the Markov process. The developed model has been solved for two kinds of failure/repair rates namely variable failures (very much similar to real-time failure) and constant failures. Lagrange's method and Laplace transformation are used for the solution of the developed model.

Findings

Reliability and mean time to failure of the ATVM are determined. Sensitivity analysis for ATVM is also carried out in the paper. Critical components of the ATVM, which affect the performance of the same, in terms of reliability and MTTF are also identified.

Originality/value

A mathematical model based on different hardware and software failures/repairs of ATVM has been developed to analyze its performance, which has not been done in the past.

Details

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2511

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2019

Sorabh Gupta

The purpose of this paper is to present the technique for evaluating the performance of a condensate system of a coal-based thermal power plant situated in the northern part of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present the technique for evaluating the performance of a condensate system of a coal-based thermal power plant situated in the northern part of India. The data which used for system availability evaluation are not precise and are uncertain and, further, collected from concerned power plant history sheets and from discussion through plant personnel.

Design/methodology/approach

In the proposed model, traditional Markov birth-death process using a probabilistic approach is used to analyze the performance of a complex repairable condensate system of power plant up to a desired degree of accuracy. This approach has been demonstrated by breaking the condensate system into six subsystems arranged in series with two feasible states, namely, working and failed, labeled in a transition diagram and modeled as a Markov process, using Chapman–Kolmogorov equations, which are used for development of a probabilistic stochastic model for availability analysis in a more effecting manner, considering some suitable assumptions.

Findings

This study of analysis of reliability and availability can help in increasing the plant production and performance. The analysis is done with the help of availability matrices, which are developed using different combinations of failures and repair rates of all subsystems. To achieve the goal of maximum power generation, it is required to run the various subsystem of the concerned system of plant, failure free for a long duration. Therefore, the present approach may be a more powerful analysis tool to access the performance of all subsystems of a condensate system in terms of availability level achieved in availability matrices. The results of present study are found to be highly beneficial to the plant management for making maintenance decisions.

Originality/value

The present paper suggests a suitable technique for stochastic modeling and availability evaluation of an industrial system using Markovian approach and drawing a transition diagram to represent the operational behavior of the system. The present methodology includes the advantage of the ability to model and develop a more complex industrial system and helps in improving the performance and handling the uncertainties and possibilities of an industrial system.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 36 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

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