Search results

1 – 10 of over 58000
Article
Publication date: 13 August 2019

Liling Ge and Yingjie Zhang

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical components of a complex system by using survival signature. First, a complex system is abstracted with varying scales and…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical components of a complex system by using survival signature. First, a complex system is abstracted with varying scales and generates a multi-levels model. Then reliability evaluations can be conducted by survival signature from rough to fine for tracing and identifying them. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated by an actual production system.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper mainly applies a multi-level evaluating strategy for the reliability analysis of complex systems with components of multiple types. In addition, a multi-levels model of a complex system is constructed and survival signature also used for evaluation.

Findings

The proposed approach was demonstrated to be the feasibility by an actual production system that is used in the case study.

Research limitations/implications

The case study was performed on a system with simple network structure, but the proposed approach could be applied to systems with complex ones. However, the approach to generate the digraphs of abstraction levels for complex system has to be developed.

Practical implications

So far the approach has been used for the reliability analysis of a machining system. The approach that is proposed for the identification of critical components also can be applied to make maintenance decision.

Originality/value

The multi-level evaluating strategy that was proposed for reliability analysis and the identification of critical components of complex systems was a novel method, and it also can be applied as index to make maintenance planning.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 October 2017

Hamed Fazlollahtabar and Seyed Taghi Akhavan Niaki

This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive fault tree analysis (FTA) on the critical components of industrial robots. This analysis is integrated with the reliability block…

763

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive fault tree analysis (FTA) on the critical components of industrial robots. This analysis is integrated with the reliability block diagram (RBD) approach to investigate the robot system reliability.

Design/methodology/approach

For practical implementation, a particular autonomous guided vehicle (AGV) system was first modeled. Then, FTA was adopted to model the causes of failures, enabling the probability of success to be determined. In addition, RBD was used to simplify the complex system of the AGV for reliability evaluation purpose.

Findings

Hazard decision tree (HDT) was configured to compute the hazards of each component and the whole AGV robot system. Through this research, a promising technical approach was established, allowing decision-makers to identify the critical components of AGVs along with their crucial hazard phases at the design stage.

Originality/value

As complex systems have become global and essential in today’s society, their reliable design and determination of their availability have turned into very important tasks for managers and engineers. Industrial robots are examples of these complex systems that are being increasingly used for intelligent transportation, production and distribution of materials in warehouses and automated production lines.

Details

Industrial Robot: An International Journal, vol. 44 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 December 2021

Xue-Qin Li, Lu-Kai Song and Guang-Chen Bai

To provide valuable information for scholars to grasp the current situations, hotspots and future development trends of reliability analysis area.

Abstract

Purpose

To provide valuable information for scholars to grasp the current situations, hotspots and future development trends of reliability analysis area.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, recent researches on efficient reliability analysis and applications in complex engineering structures like aeroengine rotor systems are reviewd.

Findings

The recent reliability analysis advances of engineering application in aeroengine rotor system are highlighted, it is worth pointing out that the surrogate model methods hold great efficiency and accuracy advantages in the complex reliability analysis of aeroengine rotor system, since its strong computing power can effectively reduce the analysis time consumption and accelerate the development procedures of aeroengine. Moreover, considering the multi-objective, multi-disciplinary, high-dimensionality and time-varying problems are the common problems in various complex engineering fields, the surrogate model methods and its developed methods also have broad application prospects in the future.

Originality/value

For the strong demand for efficient reliability design technique, this review paper may help to highlights the benefits of reliability analysis methods not only in academia but also in practical engineering application like aeroengine rotor system.

Details

International Journal of Structural Integrity, vol. 13 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-9864

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 March 2020

Victor Meyer Jr, Miguel Piña e Cunha, Diórgenes Falcão Mamédio and Danillo Prado Nogueira

The focus of this study was to analyze crisis management in a context of high-reliability organizations (HRO) evidenced in two cases of Brazilian air disasters. Aspects of human…

Abstract

Purpose

The focus of this study was to analyze crisis management in a context of high-reliability organizations (HRO) evidenced in two cases of Brazilian air disasters. Aspects of human and technological natures were examined, addressing the complex sociotechnical system.

Design/methodology/approach

This in-depth case study addressed the two most serious air disasters on Brazilian territory. The first case involved a midair collision between Gol Flight 1907 and the Legacy jet. In the second case, TAM flight 3054 had difficulty braking when landing at the airport and crashed into a building. Data were collected from official disaster documents.

Findings

The results revealed that the management and operational activities aimed to maintain the necessary conditions that prioritize a high level of reliability. High reliability mainly involves concern over failure, reluctance to accept simplified interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience and detailed structure specifications.

Practical implications

The implications are based on alerting highly reliable organizations, emphasizing the focus on managing more reliably, resiliently and conscientiously. Changes will be required in the operations of organizations seeking to learn to manage unexpected events and respond quickly to continually improve the responsiveness of their services.

Originality/value

In the perspective of an intrinsic case study for crisis management in a context of HRO and disaster risk management, the originality of this study lies in its examination of the paradoxical nature of control within the systems of dangerous operations in complex organizations, as well as their contradictions in a high-reliability system.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 August 2018

Stephen Boakye Twum and Elaine Aspinwall

System reliability optimisation in today’s world is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction, businesses competitiveness, secure and uninterrupted delivery of services and…

Abstract

Purpose

System reliability optimisation in today’s world is critical to ensuring customer satisfaction, businesses competitiveness, secure and uninterrupted delivery of services and safety of operations. Among many systems configurations, complex systems are the most difficult to model for reliability optimisation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of a novel optimisation methodology of the authors, developed to address the difficulties in the context of a gas carrying system (GCS) exhibiting dual failure modes and high initial reliability.

Design/methodology/approach

The minimum cut sets involving components of the system were obtained using the fault tree approach, and their reliability constituted into criteria which were maximised and the associated cost of improving their reliabilities minimised. Pareto optimal generic components and system reliabilities were subsequently obtained.

Findings

The results indicate that the optimisation methodology could improve the system’s reliability even from an initially high one, granted that the feasibility factor for improving a component’s reliability was very high. The results obtained, in spite of the size (41 objective functions and 18 decision variables), the complexity (dual failure modes) and the high initial reliability values provide confidence in the optimisation model and methodology and demonstrate their applicability to systems exhibiting multiple failure modes.

Research limitations/implications

The GCS was assumed either failed or operational, its parameters precisely determined, and non-repairable. The components failure rates were exponentially distributed and failure modes independent. A single weight vector representing expression of preference in which components reliabilities were weighted higher than cost was used due to the stability of the optimisation model to weight variations.

Practical implications

The high initial reliability values imply that reliability improvement interventions may not be a critical requirement for the GCS. The high levels could be sustained through planned and systematic inspection and maintenance activities. Even so, purely from an analytical stand point, the results nevertheless show that there was some room for reliability improvement however marginal that is. The improvement may be secured by: use of components with comparable levels of reliability to those achieved; use of redundancy techniques to achieve the desired levels of improvement in reliability; or redesigning of the components.

Originality/value

The novelty of this work is in the use of a reliability optimisation model and methodology that focuses on a system’s minimum cut sets as criteria to be optimised in order to optimise the system’s reliability, and the specific application to a complex system exhibiting dual failure modes and high component reliabilities.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 35 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 July 2019

Abdul Kareem Lado and V.V. Singh

The purpose of this paper is to covenant with the cost assessment of a complex repairable system, consisting of two subsystems (Subsystem 1 and Subsystem 2) connected in series…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to covenant with the cost assessment of a complex repairable system, consisting of two subsystems (Subsystem 1 and Subsystem 2) connected in series configuration and being operated by a human operator. Each subsystem has two identical units in parallel configuration and has different types of failure and two types of repairs (general repair and copula repair). Through the transition diagram, the system of first-order partial differential equations is derived and solved using a supplementary variable technique, Laplace transforms. All failures are assumed to follow exponential distribution, whereas repairs follow two types of distributions that are general and Gumbel–Hougaard family copula. In this paper, explicit expressions for reliability, availability, mean time to failure (MTTF) and cost analysis functions have been obtained. In this paper, two types of repairs (copula repair and general repair) have been studied, and it has been concluded that copula repair is more reliable as compared to general repair. Some computations are taken as particular case by evaluating: reliability, availability, MTTF and cost analysis, so as to capture the effect of both failure and repair rates to reliability measures. The results have been shown in tables and graphs. The convincing part has been discussed in last section of this study.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is focused on the cost assessment of a system consisting two subsystem series configuration. Each subsystem has two identical units in parallel configuration. The performance of the system has been analyzed by supplementary variable techniques and Laplace transforms. Various measures of the reliability have been discussed by evaluations. Software called Maple 13 is used for computations.

Findings

In this research paper, the authors have evaluated the operational cost and incurred profit of the system together with other reliability measures for various situations and different types of failures and two types of repairs using Gumbel–Hougaard family copula distribution.

Research limitations/implications

The present research focuses on the series and parallel configured complex systems that is used everywhere in industry and other sectors. The authors main aim is to claim that repair through the joint probability distribution copula is far better than general repair. Copula repair for a completely failed system is more beneficial for industrial system operations that will increase profit to the industrial sector.

Practical implications

The authors have observed that when repair follows general distribution the values of reliability obtained of the system are less compared to the those obtained when the authors apply copula repair, a joint probability distribution. It is a clear implication for industrial sector and organization to use the policy for a better generate revenue.

Social implications

According to the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no social implication as this study is meant for reliability section. The study in management and case study matters is considered to have social implication.

Originality/value

This research is the original work of authors. Nothing has been copied from any paper or book. The references are cited according to the relevance of study.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 36 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 August 2009

Komal, S.P. Sharma and Dinesh Kumar

The purpose of this paper is to present a hybridized technique for analyzing the behavior of an industrial system stochastically utilizing vague, imprecise, and uncertain data…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a hybridized technique for analyzing the behavior of an industrial system stochastically utilizing vague, imprecise, and uncertain data. The press unit of a paper mill situated in a northern part of India, producing 200 tons of paper per day, has been considered to demonstrate the proposed approach. Sensitivity analysis of system's behavior has also been done.

Design/methodology/approach

In the proposed approach, two important tools namely traditional Lambda‐Tau technique and genetic algorithm have been hybridized to build genetic algorithms‐based Lambda‐Tau (GABLT) technique to analyze the behavior of complex repairable industrial systems stochastically up to a desired degree of accuracy. This technique has been demonstrated by computing six well‐known reliability indices used for behavior analysis of the considered system in more promising way.

Findings

The behavior analysis results computed by GABLT technique have reduced region of prediction in comparison of existing Lambda‐Tau technique region, i.e. uncertainties involved in the analysis are reduced. Thus, it may be a more useful analysis tool to assess the current system conditions and involved uncertainties. The paper suggested an approach to improve the system's performance.

Originality/value

The paper suggests a hybridized technique for analyzing the stochastic behavior of an industrial subsystem by computing six well‐known reliability indices in the form of fuzzy membership function.

Details

International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, vol. 2 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-378X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2007

Yong Sun, Lin Ma and Joseph Mathew

The purpose of this article is to present a new split system model (SSM) that predicts the reliability of complex systems with multiple preventive maintenance (PM) actions in the…

1117

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to present a new split system model (SSM) that predicts the reliability of complex systems with multiple preventive maintenance (PM) actions in the long term.

Design/methodology/approach

The SSM was developed using probability theory based on the concept of separating repaired and unrepaired components within a system virtually when modelling the reliability of the system after repairs. After theoretical analysis, a case study and Monte Carlo simulation were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the newly developed model.

Findings

The model can be used to determine the remaining life of systems, to show the changes in reliability with PM actions, and to quantify PM intervals after imperfect repairs.

Practical implications

SSM can be used to predict the reliability of complex systems with multiple PM actions, and hence can be used to support asset PM decision making over the whole life of the asset, such as scheduled PM times and spare parts requirements. An asset often has some vulnerable components, i.e. where the lives of these components are much shorter than the rest of the asset. In this case, PM is often conducted on these vulnerable components for maximising the useful life of the asset. The specific formulae derived in this paper can be used to predict the reliability of the asset for this scenario.

Originality/value

The proposed model uses a new concept of split systems to predict the changes of reliability of complex systems with multiple PM actions. Asset managers will find this model to be a useful tool in the optimisation of their asset PM strategies.

Details

Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2511

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 November 2018

Hamed Fazlollahtabar and Seyed Taghi Akhavan Niaki

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the required number of robots consisting of some non-repairable components, by employing a renewal model. Considering the importance of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the required number of robots consisting of some non-repairable components, by employing a renewal model. Considering the importance of the availability of standby autonomous robots for reducing and preventing down-times of advanced production systems, which imposes a considerable loss, the present research tries to introduce a practical model for the determination of the required number of autonomous robots.

Design/methodology/approach

Most of the available research on the estimation of the required standby components based on the reliability characteristics of components has not considered the environmental factors influencing the reliability characteristics. Therefore, such estimations are not accurate enough. In contrast, this paper focuses on the influence of the environmental and human factors (e.g. the operators’ skill) on the robot reliability characteristics.

Findings

A model based on the Weibull renewal process combined with the cold standby strategy is developed for reliability evaluation of the system. The effectiveness of the proposed integrated reliability evaluation model is worked out in some cases.

Originality/value

Determining a required number of robots is an important issue in availability and utilization of a complex robotic production system. In an advanced production system, while the estimation process of a required number of robots can be performed through different approaches, one of the realistic estimation methods is based on the system’s reliability that takes into consideration the system operating environment. To forecast the required number of robots for an existing production system, in some cases, the assumption of a constant failure rate does not differ much from the assumption of a non-constant failure rate and can be made with an acceptable error.

Details

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, vol. 35 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0265-671X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 July 2018

Thomas Paul Talafuse and Edward A. Pohl

When performing system-level developmental testing, time and expenses generally warrant a small sample size for failure data. Upon failure discovery, redesigns and/or corrective…

Abstract

Purpose

When performing system-level developmental testing, time and expenses generally warrant a small sample size for failure data. Upon failure discovery, redesigns and/or corrective actions can be implemented to improve system reliability. Current methods for estimating discrete (one-shot) reliability growth, namely the Crow (AMSAA) growth model, stipulate that parameter estimates have a great level of uncertainty when dealing with small sample sizes. The purpose of this paper is to present an application of a modified GM(1,1) model for handling system-level testing constrained by small sample sizes.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents a methodology for incorporating failure data into a modified GM(1,1) model for systems with failures following a poly-Weibull distribution. Notional failure data are generated for complex systems and characterization of reliability growth parameters is performed via both the traditional AMSAA model and the GM(1,1) model for purposes of comparing and assessing performance.

Findings

The modified GM(1,1) model requires less complex computational effort and provides a more accurate prediction of reliability growth model parameters for small sample sizes and multiple failure modes when compared to the AMSAA model. It is especially superior to the AMSAA model in later stages of testing.

Originality/value

This research identifies cost-effective methods for developing more accurate reliability growth parameter estimates than those currently used.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 58000