Introduction to

Reliability, availability,
maintainability and safety
Engineering (R A M S)
Aims of Reliability and Maintainability Engineering

● Study, Characterise, Measure and Analyse the failures

and repairs of the system with an aim to
○ Improve operational use
○ Eliminate/Reduce likelihood of failures
○ Eliminate/Reduce Safety risks
○ Reduce down time
○ Increase available operating time
Importance of Reliability and Maintainability
● Life cycle costing
● Cost benefit analysis
● Operational capability studies
● Repair and facility resourcing
● Inventory and spare parts requirement determinations
● Replacement decisions
● Establishment of preventive maintenance programs
Reliability improvement
● During design:
● Redundancy / duplication for Critical and High-failure rate
components
● Designing excessive strength into components
● Careful selection of Components
● Derating (operating the system below rated stress level)
Choice of Technology
○ Reduction of complexity or number of sub-assemblies
Reliability improvement
● During Manufacturing or Construction
○ Good quality control program
■ Confirmation to specification
■ Reduction of variability
○ Inspection and acceptance sampling procedures
Reliability improvement
During Operational phase
● Preventive maintenance
● Sound parts replacement policies
● Engineering modifications
● Careful attention to environmental conditions and operating loads
● Proper amount of repair resources including Technicians, Spares and
test equipment
● Skill levels and maintenance training
● Resupply lead times
RAMS concepts - Reliability

● Reliability is the probability that a component or system

will perform a required function for a given period of time
when used under stated operating conditions.
○ Probability of a non failure over time
○ Failure to be defined
○ Unit of time to be identified
○ Under normal operating conditions
RAMS concepts - Maintainability

● Maintainability is the probability that a failed component will

be restored or repaired to a specific condition with in
a period of time when maintenance is performed in
accordance with prescribed procedures.
○ Probability of a repair in a given time
○ Waiting time for maintenance personnel, parts, travel and
administrative time
RAMS concepts - Availability
● Availability is the probability that a component or system is
performing its required function at a given point of time when
used under stated operating conditions.
○ Percentage of up time
○ Reliability Vs Availability-current working conditions
○ Availability can never be less than reliability
○ Preferred measure as it caters both failures and repairs
RAMS concepts - Safety
● Safety:
○ Freedom from unacceptable risk of harm
Hazard Rate Function- Bathtub Curve
● Infant Mortality - decreasing failure rate early in their life
cycle
● Useful life - nearly constant failure rate
● Wear out - increasing failure rate
 Stage Caused by Reduced by
Burn in (DFR) Manufacturing defects Burn-in Testing
Defective parts Screening
Poor Quality Control Quality control
Poor workmanship Acceptance testing
—-------------------------- —----------------------------- —------------------------------
Useful life (CFR) Environment Redundancy
Random loads Excess strength
Human error
“ Acts of God”
Chance of events
—-------------------------- —----------------------------- —------------------------------
Wear out (IFR) Fatigue Derating
Aging, Corrosion, Preventive maintenance
Friction Parts replacement
Technology
● MTBF- Mean Time Between Failures
● Measure of Reliability
● Calculated as arithmetic mean (average) time between the
failures
MTBF
● MTBF = ∑ (Start of down time-Start of up time)
Number of failures

= Number of operational hours

Number of failures

= 8+3+7+2 = 20 = 6.67hrs
3 3
● MTBF excludes scheduled maintenance, inspections,
calibrations and planned replacements.
MTBF
● Maintenance strategies
○ Gross root analysis
○ Preventive maintenance
○ Directed maintenance
○ Condition based maintenance
● Mitigation of impact
MTBF
● Planning of maintenance
○ Culprit part
○ Training needs
○ Inventory control (Just in time)
● Planning of capital expenditure
● Combat low MTBF
● Huge impact on organisation
MTTR
● Mean Time to Repair
● Basic measure of maintainability of repairable items
● Represents average time required to repair a failed
component or device
MTTR

● MTTR= Total Maintenance Time

Number of repairs (failures)
MTTR = ∑ (End of Corrective action - Start of Corrective action)
Number of corrective actions
= (2+1+1) / 3 = 1.33 hrs
MTTR

● How quickly we respond to unplanned breakdowns?

○ Notify Technician
○ Diagnose the issue
○ Fix the issue
○ Arrange spares
○ Access to equipments
○ Testing
MTTR .

● Reduction of MTTR
○ Repair / Replacement decisions
○ Maintenance scheduling
○ Standardised pattern of maintenance
○ Inventory control
○ Managerial issues
○ Remote diagnostics
○ Improving efficiency by eliminating redundancies
MTTR
● Does not include lead time or administrative/logistic down
times
● Benchmarks of MTTR
Route Time
A 45 minutes
B 60-90 minutes
D special 60-90 minutes
E 120 minutes
Measure of Availability
● Measures of probability that a system is not failed or undergoing a repair action
when it is needed to be used
Measure of Availability
● Availability= Up time *100%
Up time+Down time

Availability= (20/24)*100%
= 83.33%

● Availability= MTBF *100%

MTBF+MTTR

= 6.67 *100%
6.67+1.33

= 83.33%
Measure of Availability
● Increased availability leads to increased revenues
● Important KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
● Too much preventive maintenance adversity affects availability.
Measure of Safety
● In terms of SIL (Safety Integrity Level)
● SIL 4 is most dependable and SIL 1 is least dependable
● SIL targets for risk reduction
● Risk associated with specific hazard is calculated.This is to be
mitigated.
● SIL is the probability of dangerous failure on demand in a given
period.
 Measurement of Safety
SIL level Tolerable hazard Risk reduction rates
rate(THL)/hr

1 10-6∠THR∠10-5 100 to 10
—-------------------------- —---------------------------- --------------------------------
2 - 1000 to 100
----------------------------- 10-7∠THR∠10-6
3 ------------------------------- —------------------------------
----------------------------- - 10000 to 1000
--------------------------------
4 10-8∠THR∠10-7
------------------------------- 100000 to 10000
-
SIL classification is 10-9∠THR∠10-8
as per CENELEC standards. CENELEC-
European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation
THR of 10-8 /hr means
10-8 hazard/hr

● 1 hazard/108 hr

● (1 hazard/108)*24*30*12 yrs

● 0.0000864 hazards/yr

● 0.0000864*15 hazards/15 yrs

● 0.001296 hazard/equipment/lifetime

● 0.001296*750 hazards/750 equipment in lifetime

● 0.972 ≅ 1 hazard for 750 equipment in their lifetime.

FRPCPY (Failure Rate Percent Per Year)

This is a compilation of data on a uniform base of 100 and for a period of 12

months.
● This is very commonly used in Indian Railways to compare the performance of
same item maintained at many locations and over a period.
● FRPCPY = (No. Of failures * 100*12) /Population*Period in months.
● This formula provides uniformity in comparing the data of different units, in a
different application, of different make etc.
How can RAMS standards help to achieve goals?
● RAMS standards provide guidance what to do in order to
increase the confidence that the system guarantees the
achievement of this goal.
● RAMS standards describe how to specify targets in terms of
Reliability, Maintainability, Availability and Safety.
● RAMS standards define systematic processes to demonstrate
that these targets are achieved.
● RAMS standards define the responsibilities throughout the life
cycle.
● Railway RAMS has a clear influence to system functionality,
frequency of service, regularity of service, fare structure etc
and help to increase the quality of transport service delivered
to customer.
CENELEC Standards
Standards for Railway Applications (RAMS)
EN 50126 Railway Applications : The Specification and
Demonstration
of Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety
(RAMS)
EN 50128 Railway Applications : Communication, Signalling and
Processing systems - Software for Railway Control and
Protection Systems
Standards for Railway Applications (RAMS)
EN 50129 Railway Applications : Communication, Signalling
and Processing systems - Safety related electronic
systems for Signalling Railway
EN 50159 Applications : Communication, Signalling and
Processing Systems - Safety related communication
in transmission systems
EN 61508 Functional Safety of electrical / electronic /
(IEC 61508) programmable electronic safety related systems
 Thank You
Aritra Majumder
www.linkedin.com/in/aritra10/