Introduction to

Reliability

Week 8 – June 6, 2024

 What is Reliability
As per Google

“Reliability is the quality of being able to

be trusted or believed because of working
or behaving well, or how well a machine,
piece of equipment, or system works”
 Reliability Definition
 Generally defined as the ability of a product to
perform, as expected, over certain time.
 Formally defined as the probability that an item, a
product, piece of equipment, or system will perform
its intended function for a stated period of time
under specified operating conditions.
 In the simplest sense, reliability means how long an
item (such as a machine) will perform its intended
function is
Reliability without a breakdown.
performance over time, probability
that something will work when you want it to.
 Maintenance and Reliability
The objective of maintenance and
reliability is to maintain the capability of
the system while controlling costs
 Maintenance is all activities involved in
keeping a system’s equipment in working
order
 Reliability is the probability that a
machine will function properly for a
specified time
 Maintenance and Reliability
 Maintenance Tactics
 Implementing or improving preventive
maintenance
 Increasing repair capability or speed

 Tactics to improve Reliability

 Improving individual components
 Providing redundancy
 Reliability Definition
The Reliability definition has four important elements:
 Probability - A value between 0 and 1, number of times that an
event occurs (success) divided by total number trials)
e.g. probability of 0.91 means that 91 of 100 items will still be working at
stated time under stated conditions
 Performance - Some criteria to define when and how product fails,
which also describes what is considered to be satisfactory system
operation
e.g. amount of beam collisions, etc
 Time - (system working until time (t), used to predict probability of
an item surviving without failure for a designated period of time)
 Operating conditions - conditions (environmental factors, humidity,
vibration, shock, temperature cycle, operational profile, etc. ) that
correspond to the stated product life.
 Conflicts with real world.
There are “Real World” conflicts with this
definition that we need to keep in mind…
 Probability – Customers expect a probability of 1, “It Works”

 Intended Function – The product may be used in unintended

ways and still be expected to work

 Under Stated Conditions – The product may be operated

outside of the stated conditions and still be expected to work

 Prescribed Procedures – Customers may not have the

required tools or skill level and may not follow procedures and
still expect the product to work
Customers are looking for Quality over Time
 Importance of Reliability
 Companies who control the Reliability of their
products can only survive in the business in future
as today's consumer is more “intelligent” and
product aware.
 Liability for unreliable products can be very high.
 Complexity of products is ever increasing and thus
challenge to Reliability Engineering is also
increasing.
 Products are being advertised by their Reliability
Ratings.
 Quality, Reliability and Safety
 Reliability can be considered as ”Quality over time”.
Customers frequently use the terms ”quality” and
”reliability”. We need to understand what they expect.
 Measurement of reliability is related to failure rates,
number of failures, warranty cost etc. Thus, reliability is
experienced by the customers when they use the
product.
 Quality Level is measured in terms of defect levels
when the product is received as new.
 Quality and reliability both can have significant impact
on Safety.
 Quality, Reliability and Safety
 Quality defects and failures both can adversely affect safety of
user, bystanders and equipment.
 Some quality defects can lead to unreliable and/or unsafe
product.
 Some examples of how unreliability can affect safety:
• Failure of automobile steering system, brake system, axles etc, can result in
serious accidents.
• Short circuit in electrical equipment can result in a shock or death.
• Failure of safety valve in a pressure cooker, leakage of regulator of an LPG
cylinder can result in an explosion.
• Poor reliability of a bridge can result in an accident and disaster

However, all failures are not safety issues and all safety issues are
not due to failures.
When Should Reliability Be
Applied?
“From the cradle to the grave.”
i.e. The entire life cycle of the product.
 Importance of
Maintenance and Reliability

Failure has far reaching effects on a firm’s

 Operation
 Reputation
 Profitability
 Dissatisfied customers
 Idle employees
 Profits becoming losses
 Reduced value of investment in plant and
equipment
 Reliability Engineering

Week 9 and 10 – June 11-20, 2024

 Reliability Engineering

 Reliability Engineering is concerned with

analyzing failures and providing feedback to
design and production to prevent future
failures
Questions?
Thank You!
 Reliability Engineering

Week 9 and 10 – June 11-20, 2024

 Reliability Engineering
 Reliability Engineering is concerned with
analyzing failures and providing feedback to
design and production to prevent future
failures
 Why Reliability Eng’g
 Reliability and maintainability engineering
attempts to study, characterize, measure,
and analyze the failure and repair of
systems in order to improve upon their
operational use by increasing their design
life, eliminating or reducing the likelihood of
failures and safety risks, and reducing
downtime thereby increasing available
operating time.
 Why Reliability Eng’g
As Reliability Engineering is concerned with
analyzing failures, it is only natural that a
rigorous classification of failure types must
be agreed upon.
Reliability engineers usually speaks of
 Failures Causes
 Failure Modes
 Failure Mechanisms 20
 Things Fail!
 2000 - Firestone’s steel-belted radials failed
at an abnormal rate as a result of the outer
tread coming apart from the main body of
the tire.
 Based strictly on the excessive number of failures,
Firestone was forced to recall 7.5 million tires.
 Things Fail!
 2007 - The entire span of the Interstate
35W bridge collapsed where the freeway
crosses the river in Minneapolis
 Failure of undersized, steel gusset plates was
reason for collapse. Engineers who designed
the bridge in the 1960s either failed to
calculate or improperly calculated the
thickness needed for the plates that were to
hold the bridge together.
 How Do Products Really Fail
Two common types of failures:
 DESIGNED TO FAIL
1. Sudden failure (no
 MANUFACTURED TO FAIL indicators): Stress exceeds
strength ….
 ASSEMBLED TO FAIL
2. Degradation (gradual wear
 SCREENED TO FAIL out): degradation indicator
such as crack growth,
 STORED TO FAIL change of resistance,
 TRANSPORTED TO FAIL corrosion, … This is ideal for
Condition-Based
 OPERATED TO FAIL Maintenance
Other failures may occur
because of human errors.
 Failures and Faults

 Failure - A failure is an event when an item is

not available to perform its function at specified
conditions when scheduled or is not capable of
performing functions to specification.
 Fault - The part of the item which must be
repaired to prevent a failure.
 Failure Rate - The number of failures per unit of
gross operating period in terms of time, events,
cycles.
 Type of Failures of Items
Random
Failures
Consecutive
Failure Failures
of a few
Items Design
Failures
Failures
Dependant
of identical
Failures
Items Environm.
caused
Failures
Functional
Failures
 Fault classification
Phenomenological Physical faults
cause Human-made faults
Accidental faults
Nature Non-malicious intentional faults
Malicious faults
Phase of creation Development faults
FAULTS or occurrence
Operational faults
Internal faults
System boundaries
External faults
Permanent faults
Persistence
Temporary faults
26
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures
 Reliability, Availability, Maintainability,
Safety and Quality are what the Customer
says they are, not what the Engineers or
the Designers say they are.
 Measurement of reliability is related to
failure rates, number of failures, warranty
cost etc. Thus, reliability is experienced
by the customers when they use the
product.
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

 Reliability is defined to be the probability

that a component or system will perform a
required function for a given period of time
when used under stated operating
conditions -R(t).
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

 Availability is defined as the probability

that a component or system is performing
its required function at a given point in
time when used under stated operating
conditions -A(t).
 The product or service is available when it is in
the operational state, which includes active
and standby use.
 Availability
 Machines with more frequent but less severe
breakdowns are better in terms of process
stability and inventory cost than machines
with less frequent but more severe
breakdowns.
 Accurate assessment of availability and
variability calls for high data integrity.
 Must show all downtime for internal setups
and failures.
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

 Maintainability is defined to be the

probability that a failed component or
system will be restored or repaired to a
specified condition within a period of time
when maintenance is performed in
accordance with prescribed procedures -
M(t).
 32
Maintainability
 Maintainability is the measure of the
ability of a system or item to be
retained or restored to a specified
condition when maintenance is
performed by qualified personnel
using specified procedure and
resources.
 Specific Principles of
Maintainability and Reliability
Maintainability Reliability

1. Reduce life cycle maintenance costs 1. Maximize the use of standard

2. Reduce the amount, frequently and parts
complexity of required maintenance 2. Use fewer components for
tasks. performing multiple functions
3. Reduce mean time to repair (MTTR) 3. Design for simplicity
4. Determine the extent of preventive 4. Provide adequate safety factors
maintenance to be performed between strength and peek
5. Provide for maximum interchange stress values
ability 5. Provide fail-safe design
6. Reduce the amount of supply 6. Provide redundancy when
supports required required
7. Reduce or eliminate the need for 7. Minimize stress on components
maintenance and parts
8. Consider benefits of modular 8. Use parts and components with
replacement versus part repair or proven reliability
throwaway design
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

 Safety is the probability that a system

will either perform its functions correctly
or will discontinue its fucntions in a
manner that does not disrupt the
operation of other systems or
compromise the safety of any people
associated directly or inderectly with the
syste.
 Failure rate over the
life of a product

 The failure rate is expected to vary over

the life of a product – ‘Bathtub Curve’
Infant Mortality Chart Title Wearout
 Useful Life 
D
A
Failure Rate

B C

Time
 Bathtub Curve.
 A-B Early Failure / Infant mortality / Debugging /
Break-in
• Teething’ problems. Caused by design/material flaws
Eg: Joints, Welds, Contamination, Misuse, Misassembly

 B-C Constant Failure / Useful life.

 Lower than initial failure rate and more or less
constant until end of life
 C-D End of life failure / Wear out phase.
 end of life Failure rate rises again due to components
reaching
– eg.: Corrosion, Cracking, Wear, Friction, Fatigue, Erosion, Lack of PM
 Bathtub Curve: Summary Table
Phase Failure Rate Possible Causes Possible improvement
actions.
Burn-in Decreasing Manufacturing defects, Better QC, Acceptance
(A-B) (DFR) welding, soldering, testing, Burn-in testing,
assembly errors, part screening, Highly
defects, poor QC, poor Accelerated Stress
workmanship, etc Screening, etc.
Useful Life Constant Environment, random Excess Strength,
(B-C) (CFR) loads, Human errors, redundancy, robust
chance events, ’Acts of design, etc
God’, etc
Wear-out Increasing Fatigue, Corrosion, Derating, preventive
(C-D) (IFR) Aging, Friction, etc. maintenance, parts
replacement, better
material, improved
designs, technology,
etc.
 Managing Reliability

 Reliability management is concerned with performance

and conformance over the expected life of the product
 A systems approach to planning for, designing in,
verifying, and tracking the reliability of products
throughout their life to achieve reliability goals.
• Reliability of a system is often specified by the failure
rate λ.
• λ = failures per time unit (in a collection of systems)
• For most technical products (incl. embedded
systems), λ(t) is a “bath-tub curve“:
 Reliability Measurement
Reliability measurement is based on the
failure rate
Items Failed
Failure rate 
Total Operating Time
 Some products (Non-repairable) are scrapped when they
fail e.g. bulb
 Other products (Repairable) are repaired e.g. washing
machine.

39
 Alternative Measurement

 MTBF - Mean Time Between Failures - The average time

between failure occurrences. The number of items and
their operating time divided by the total number of
failures. For Repairable Items
 MTTF - Mean Time To Failure - The average time to failure
occurrence. The number of items and their operating time
divided by the total number of failures. For Repairable
Items and Non-repairable Items
 MTTR - Mean Time To Repair - The average time to restore
the item to specified conditions.
 Product Failure Rate (FR)
Basic unit of measure for reliability

Number of failures
FR(%) = x 100%
Number of units tested

Number of failures
FR(N) =
Number of unit-hours of operating time
Mean time between failures
1
MTBF = FR(N)
 Failure Rate Example
20 air conditioning units designed for use in
NASA space shuttles operated for 1,000 hours
One failed after 200 hours and one after 600 hours
2
FR(%) = (100%) = 10%
20
2
FR(N) = = .000106 failure/unit hr
20,000 - 1,200

1
MTBF = = 9,434 hr
.000106
 Failure Rate Example
Example 2
 300 cars have accumulated 45000
hours, 10 failures are observed. What is
the MTBF? What is the failure rate?
 FR = 10/45000 = 0.00022 per hour.
 MTBF = 1/FR = 1/ 0.00022 = 4500 hrs
 Tactics to improve
Reliability

 Improving individual
components

 Providing redundancy
 Tactics to improve
Reliability
1. Improving individual components

Rs = R 1 x R 2 x R 3 x … x R n

where R1 = reliability of component 1

R2 = reliability of component 2
and so on
 Series Systems

1 2 n

RS = R1 x R2 x ... Rn

46
 Overall System Reliability
100 –
n=1
Reliability of the system (percent)

80 – n=1
0

60 –

n=
40 – n 50
=
10
n 0
=
20 – 20
n= 0
n
=

30
0
40
0

| | | | | | | | |
0 100
– 99 98 97 96
Average reliability of each component (percent)
 Reliability Example

R1 R2 R3

.90 .80 .99 Rs

Reliability of the process is

Rs = R1 x R2 x R3 = .90 x .80 x .99 = .713 or 71.3%

 Tactics to improve
Reliability

2. Providing Redundancy - providing backup

components to increase reliability

Probability Probability Probability

of first of second of needing
component + component x second
working working component

(.8) + (.8) x (1 - .8)

= .8 + .16 = .96
 Parallel Systems
1

RS = ((R1 + R1 (1 - R1)) x ((R2 + R2 (1 – R2)) x

((Rn + Rn (1 - Rn))
 Redundancy Example
A redundant process is installed to support
the earlier example where Rs = .713
R1 R2 R3
Reliability has
0.90 0.80 increased
from .713 to .94
0.90 0.80 0.99

= [.9 + .9(1 - .9)] x [.8 + .8(1 - .8)] x .99

= [.9 + (.9)(.1)] x [.8 + (.8)(.2)] x .99
= .99 x .96 x .99 = .94
 Series-Parallel Systems
C
RA RB RD
RC
A B D
C

RC

Convert to equivalent series system

RA RB RD

A B C’ D

RC’ = 1 – (1-RC)(1-RC)
52
 Example
Find the reliability of this system:

R  [0.95  0.92(1  0.95)] * [0.98] * [0.90  0.90(1  0.90)]

= 0.996 * 0.98 * 0.99 = 96.6%

Questions?
Thank You!
 Design
 The most important aspect of reliability is
the design.
 It should be as simple as possible.
 The fewer the number of components, the
greater the reliability.
 Another way of achieving reliability is to
have a backup or redundant component
(parallel component).
 Design
 Reliability can be achieved by overdesign.
 The use of large factors of safety can increase
the reliability of a product.
 When an unreliable product can lead to a
fatality or substantial financial loss, a fail-safe
type of device should be used.
 The maintenance of the system is an
important factor in reliability.
 Production
 The second most important aspect of
reliability is the production process.
 Emphasis should be placed on those
components which are least reliable.
 Production personnel.
 Transportation
 The third most important aspect of
reliability is the transportation.
 Packaging
 Shipment
 Performance of the product by the
customer is the final evaluation.
 Good packaging techniques and shipment
evaluation are essential.

 Reliability, Availability,
Maintainability

Week 11 – June 27, 2024

 Criteria for Measuring
Failures
 Reliability, Availability, Maintainability,
Safety and Quality are what the Customer
says they are, not what the Engineers or
the Designers say they are.
 Measurement of reliability is related to
failure rates, number of failures, warranty
cost etc. Thus, reliability is experienced
by the customers when they use the
product.
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

1. Reliability is defined to be the probability

that a component or system will perform a
required function for a given period of time
when used under stated operating
conditions -R(t).
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

2. Availability is defined as the probability

that a component or system is performing
its required function at a given point in
time when used under stated operating
conditions -A(t).
 Availability

 It is a time-related factor that measures

the ability of a product or service to
perform its designated function.
 The product or service is available when
it is in the operational state, which
includes active and standby use.
 Reliability versus Availability
 Availability differ from reliability. Reliability involves
an interval of time, while availability at an instant of
time.

 A system can be highly available yet experience

frequent periods of inoperability.

 The availability of a system depends not only on how

frequently it becomes inoperable but also how quickly
it can be repaired.
 Availability
 Machines with more frequent but less severe
breakdowns are better in terms of process
stability and inventory cost than machines
with less frequent but more severe
breakdowns.
 Accurate assessment of availability and
variability calls for high data integrity.
 Must show all downtime for internal setups
and failures.
 Availability
 This measure of availability might be
preferable because it gives incentive to
reduce Both MTTR and internal setup
time.
 Setup time and MTTR are often
interrelated to the extent that poorly
maintained Equipment is harder to
change over and adjust.
 Availability
Operational availability
MTBM = mean time between
MTBF maintenance
AO 
MTBM  MDT MTD = mean down time

Inherent availability MTBF = mean time between

failures
MTBF
AO  MTTR = mean time to repair
MTBF  MTTR

68
 Availability and
Maintainability

For long-lasting products and services

such as refrigerators, electric power
lines, and front-line services, the time-
related factors of availability, reliability,
and maintainability are interrelated.
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

3. Maintainability is defined to be the

probability that a failed component or
system will be restored or repaired to a
specified condition within a period of time
when maintenance is performed in
accordance with prescribed procedures -
M(t).
 71
Maintainability

 Maintainability is the measure of the

ability of a system or item to be
retained or restored to a specified
condition when maintenance is
performed by qualified personnel using
specified procedure and resources.
 72
Maintainability

 Maintainability can be measured with Mean

Time To Repair (MTTR), MTTR is average
repair time and is given by
Total Ma int enance Down Time
MTTR 
Total Number of Ma int enance Actions.

 MTBMA is Mean Time Between Maintenance

Actions including preventive and corrective
maintenance tasks.
Repair-Related Time vs Downtimes
 74
OBJECTIVES OF MAINTAINABILITY

1. To influence design to achieve case of

maintenance thus reducing maintenance
time & cost.
2. To estimate the downtime for maintenance
which, when compared with allowable
downtime, determines whether redundancy
is required to provide acceptable continuity
of a critical function.
Introduction to Reliability Engineering e-Learning course.
 75
OBJECTIVES OF MAINTAINABILITY

3. To estimate system availability by

combining maintainability data with
reliability data.
4. To estimate the man-hours and other
resources required for performing
maintenance, which are useful for
determining the costs of maintenance
and for maintenance planning.
Introduction to Reliability Engineering e-Learning course.
 76
ADVANTAGES OF MAINTAINABILITY
PREDICTION

1. It highlights areas of poor maintainability

which require product improvement,
modification or change of design.

2. It permits user to make an early assessment

of whether the predicted downtime, the
quality, quantity of personnel, tools and test
equipment are adequate and consistent with
the needs of system operational
requirements.
Introduction to Reliability Engineering e-Learning course.
 Probability of Repair Within the 77

Allowable Downtime
To calculate the probability of performing a
maintenance action within an allowable time
interval use:
M(t) = 1 – e - t / MTTR

Where:
t = Allowable downtime
MTTR= Expected downtime (MTTR)
 78

Example

:What is the probability of completing an action within 5 hours

if the MTTR = 7 hours?
Solution: M(t) = 1 – e - t/MTTR = 1 – e5/7
= 1 - .4895 = .5105
There is approximately a 51% probability of completion.

Mean-Time-To-Repair
The total corrective maintenance time divided
by the total number of corrective maintenance
actions during a given period of time.
 Specific General Principles of
Maintainability and Reliability
Specific General Principle: Specific General Principle:
Maintainability Reliability
1. Reduce life cycle maintenance costs 1. Maximize the use of standard parts
2. Reduce the amount, frequently and
2. Use fewer components for performing
complexity of required maintenance
multiple functions
tasks.
3. Reduce mean time to repair (MTTR) 3. Design for simplicity
4. Determine the extent of preventive 4. Provide adequate safety factors
maintenance to be performed between strength and peek stress
5. Provide for maximum interchange ability values
6. Reduce the amount of supply supports 5. Provide fail-safe design
required 6. Provide redundancy when required
7. Reduce or eliminate the need for 7. Minimize stress on components and
maintenance parts
8. Consider benefits of modular 8. Use parts and components with
replacement versus part repair or proven reliability
throwaway design
 Criteria for Measuring
Failures

4. Safety is the probability that a system

will either perform its functions correctly
or will discontinue its fucntions in a
manner that does not disrupt the
operation of other systems or
compromise the safety of any people
associated directly or inderectly with the
syste.
Questions?