UNIT – IV

Facilities Planning and Maintenance

• Types of Production, Plant Location and Layout, Line balancing, Maintenance –
Breakdown, Preventive and Predictive; 5S and TPM; Reliability – series, parallel, Series-
Parallel device configurations, Bath-tub curve, MTBF, MTTR, Availability and Redundancy

TYPES OF PRODUCTION
What is Production?

Production is a process of value addition, which is developed to transform a set of input elements
like man, raw material, capital, energy, information into finished products and services in proper
quality and quantity.

In other words, Production is a process of combining various inputs (man, machine, material,
money) in order to make something for consumption (product or services).

Significance of value addition in production can be, transform raw material into goods, assemble
many small parts, or design a service.

Production can be seen every day in factories, offices, hospitals, etc.

Production can be agricultural, manufacturing, or service.

What is the Production process?

Production is a process in which resources or inputs are combined by entrepreneurs to create

goods and services (also referred to as outputs or products).

Inputs are the beginning of the production process and outputs are the end of the process.

The production system can be visible as consisting of 3 factors – inputs, manufacturing process
and outputs.

Types of Production

There are four main types of production that are generally employed. Which type is suitable is
decided by the nature of the product being produced, demand of the product on the market and
supply of raw materials.

Four types of production are:

1. Unit or Job type Production,

2. Batch Production,

3. Mass Production,

4. Continuous Production or process production.

1. Unit or Job type Production

Unit or Job type Production is most commonly observed when you need to produce one single
unit of a product at a time.

A typical example of Job production is tailored outfits that are made just for you according to your
size or a cake that is made just like you want it.

This type of production depends a lot on the skill of the worker. Dependency is more on manual
work than mechanical work because every product is different from others.

Customer service plays an important role in Unit or Job production.

2. Batch Production

Batch production is most commonly used in consumer durables, FMCG or other such industries
where there are a large variety of products being manufactured with variable demands.

Batch production takes place in batches. The manufacturer needs to know the number of units to
manufacture, and are manufactured in one batch.

Examples of batch production are FMCG like Biscuits, confectionaries, packaged food items etc. It
is also used in Medicines, Hardware, Consumer durables and many such industries.

Batch Production is done in batches, so once a batch production starts, stopping the process
midway may cost a huge amount to the company.

Demand and supply play a major role in batch production. For example – the production and the
seasonality of products heavily depends on the demand.

3. Mass Production

Mass production is also known as flow production or assembly line production.

This is one of the most common types of production systems used in the automobile industry and
is also used in industries where continuous production is required. For example- the
manufacturing process adopted by ford company.

An Assembly line or mass-production plant is typically made for specialized product

manufacturing. There are multiple workstations installed and the assembly line goes through all
the workstations one by one.

The work is done in such a manner each workstation is responsible for one single type of work. As
a result, these workstations are very efficient and production due to which the whole assembly
line becomes productive and efficient.

Market demand does not play a major role in Mass production. However, the production capacity
of the company determines the success of mass production. Mass production requires huge initial
investment and working capital.
4. Continuous Production or process production

There is a lot of similarity between mass production and continuous production. It can be differentiated
by the amount of mechanical work involved.

In Mass production, both machines and humans work together. But, in continuous production, most of
the work is done by machines rather than humans. In continuous production, the production is
continuous, 24×7 hours, in a year.

An example of Continuous production is brewing. In brewing, the production goes on 24 hours a day and
365 days a year. This is because brewing takes a lot of time and attention as well.

Once production started you cannot stop, otherwise, it will lead to a huge loss. So, a controlled
environment is required for continuous production.

Plant Location and Layout

What is plant location?

Plant location refers to the choice of region and the selection of a particular site for setting up a business
or factory.

The choice is made only after considering cost and benefits of different alternative sites. It is a strategic
decision that cannot be changed once taken. If at all changed only at considerable loss, the location should
be selected as per its own requirements and circumstances.

What is an ideal location?

An ideal location is one where the cost of the product is kept to minimum, with a large market share, the
least risk and the maximum social gain.

It is the place of maximum net advantage or which gives lowest unit cost of production and distribution.

LOCATIONAL ANALYSIS

Locational analysis is a dynamic process where entrepreneur analyses and compares the appropriateness
or otherwise of alternative sites with the aim of selecting the best site for a given enterprise.

It consists of the following:

(a) Demographic Analysis: It involves study of population in the area in terms of total population
(in no.), age composition, per capita income, educational level, occupational structure etc.

(b) Trade Area Analysis: It is an analysis of the geographic area that provides continued clientele
to the firm. He would also see the feasibility of accessing the trade area from alternative sites.

(c) Competitive Analysis: It helps to judge the nature, location, size and quality of competition in
a given trade area.

(d) Traffic analysis: This is to have a rough idea about the number of potential customers passing
by the proposed site during the working hours of the shop,
 The traffic analysis aims at judging the alternative sites in terms of pedestrian and vehicular traffic
passing a site.

(e) Site economics: Alternative sites are evaluated in terms of establishment costs and
operational costs under this.

Costs of establishment is basically cost incurred for permanent physical facilities but operational
costs are incurred for running business on day to day basis, they are also called as running costs.

SELECTION CRITERIA

The important considerations for selecting a suitable location are:

a) Natural or climatic conditions.

b) Availability and nearness to the sources of raw material.

c) Transport costs-in obtaining raw material and also distribution or marketing finished products
to the ultimate users.

d) Access to market: small businesses in retail or wholesale or services should be located within
the vicinity of densely populated areas.

e)Availability of Infrastructural facilities such as developed industrial sheds or sites, link roads,
nearness to railway stations, airports or sea ports, availability of electricity, water, public utilities,
civil amenities and means of communication are important, especially for small scale businesses.

f) Availability of skilled and non-skilled labour and technically qualified and trained managers.

g) Banking and financial institutions are located nearby

h) Locations with links: to develop industrial areas or business centers result in savings and cost
reductions in transport overheads, miscellaneous expenses.

i) Strategic considerations of safety and security should be given due importance.

j) Government influences: Both positive and negative incentives to motivate an entrepreneur to

choose a particular location are made available. Positive includes cheap overhead facilities like
electricity, banking transport, tax relief, subsidies and liberalization. Negative incentives are in
form of restrictions for setting up industries in urban areas for reasons of pollution control and
decentralization of industries.

k) Residence of small business entrepreneurs want to set up nearby their homelands.

PLANT LAYOUT
The efficiency of production depends on how well the various machines; production facilities and
employee’s amenities are located in a plant.

Only the properly laid out plant can ensure the smooth and rapid movement of material, from the raw
material stage to the end product stage.

Plant layout encompasses new layout as well as improvement in the existing layout.

It may be defined as a technique of locating machines, processes and plant services within the factory so
as to achieve the right quantity and quality of output at the lowest possible cost of manufacturing.

DEFINITION

Plant layout refers to the arrangement of physical facilities such as machinery, equipment, furniture etc.
within the factory building in such a manner so as to have quickest flow of material at the lowest cost and
with the least amount of handling in processing the product from the receipt of material to the shipment
of the finished product.

According to Riggs, “the overall objective of plant layout is to design a physical arrangement that most
economically meets the required output – quantity and quality.”

According to J. L. Zundi, “Plant layout ideally involves allocation of space and arrangement of equipment
in such a manner that overall operating costs are minimized.

TYPES OF LAYOUT

Plant layout facilitates the arrangement of machines, equipment and other physical facilities in a planned
manner within the factory premises.

It differs from plant to plant, from location to location and from industry to industry. But the basic
principles governing plant layout are more or less same. As far as small business is concerned, it requires
a smaller area or space and can be located in any kind of building as long as the space is available and it is
convenient.

From the point of view of plant layout, we can classify small business or unit into three categories:

1. Manufacturing units

2. Traders

3. Service Establishments

1. Manufacturing units

• In case of manufacturing unit, plant layout may be of four types:

(a) Product or line layout

(b) Process or functional layout

(c) Fixed position or location layout

(d) Combined or group layout

(a) Product or line layout: Under this, machines and equipment are arranged in one line depending upon
the sequence of operations required for the product. The materials move from one workstation to
another sequentially without any backtracking or deviation.

In this layout, materials are fed into the first machine and finished goods travel automatically from
machine to machine, the output of one machine becoming input of the next, e.g. in a paper mill, bamboos
are fed into the machine at one end and paper comes out at the other end.

The raw material moves very fast from one workstation to other stations with a minimum work in
progress storage and material handling.

Advantages:

a) Low cost of material handling, due to straight and short route and absence of backtracking

b) Smooth and uninterrupted operations

c) Continuous flow of work

d) Lesser investment in inventory and work in progress

e) Optimum use of floor space

f) Shorter processing time or quicker output

g) Less congestion of work in the process

h) Simple and effective inspection of work and simplified production control

i) Lower cost of manufacturing per unit

Disadvantages

a) High initial capital investment in special purpose machine

b) Heavy overhead charges

c) Breakdown of one machine will hamper the whole production process

d) Lesser flexibility as specially laid out for particular product.

(b) Process layout:

In this type of layout machines of a similar type are arranged together at one place. E.g. Machines
performing drilling operations are arranged in the drilling department, machines performing casting
operations be grouped in the casting department.

Therefore the machines are installed in the plants, which follow the process layout. Hence, such layouts
typically have drilling department, milling department, welding department, heating department and
painting department etc.

The process or functional layout is followed from historical period. It evolved from the handicraft method
of production. The work has to be allocated to each department in such a way that no machines are
chosen to do as many different job as possible i.e. the emphasis is on general purpose machine.
The work, which has to be done, is allocated to the machines according to loading schedules with the
object of ensuring that each machine is fully loaded.

Advantages:

a) Lower initial capital investment in machines and equipment. There is high degree of machine
utilization, as a machine is not blocked for a single product

b) The overhead costs are relatively low

c) Change in output design and volume can be more easily adapted to the output of variety of
products

d) Breakdown of one machine does not result in complete work stoppage

e) Supervision can be more effective and specialized

f) There is a greater flexibility of scope for expansion.

Disadvantages:

a) Material handling costs are high due to backtracking

b) More skilled labour is required resulting in higher cost.

c) Time gap or lag in production is higher

d) Work in progress inventory is high needing greater storage space

e) More frequent inspection is needed which results in costly supervision

(c) Fixed Position or Location Layout

In this type of layout, the major product being produced is fixed at one location.

Equipment, labour and components are moved to that location.

All facilities are brought and arranged around one work center.

This type of layout is not relevant for small scale entrepreneur.

Advantages:

a) It saves time and cost involved on the movement of work from one workstation to another.

b) The layout is flexible as change in job design and operation sequence can be easily
incorporated.

c) It is more economical when several orders in different stages of progress are being executed
simultaneously.

d) Adjustments can be made to meet shortage of materials or absence of workers by changing

the sequence of operations.

Disadvantages:
Fixed position layout has the following drawbacks

a) Production period being very long, capital investment is very heavy

b) Very large space is required for storage of material and equipment near the product.

c) As several operations are often carried out simultaneously, there is possibility of confusion and
conflicts among different workgroups.

(d) Combined layout

Certain manufacturing units may require all three processes namely intermittent process (job shops), the
continuous process (mass production shops) and the representative process combined process [i.e.
miscellaneous shops].

In most of industries, only a product layout or process layout or fixed location layout does not exist. Thus,
in manufacturing concerns where several products are produced in repeated numbers with no likelihood
of continuous production, combined layout is followed.

Generally, a combination of the product and process layout or other combination are found, in practice,
e.g. for industries involving the fabrication of parts and assembly, fabrication tends to employ the process
layout, while the assembly areas often employ the product layout.

In soap, manufacturing plant, the machinery manufacturing soap is arranged on the product line
principle, but ancillary services such as heating, the manufacturing of glycerin, the power house, the water
treatment plant etc. are arranged on a functional basis.

2. Traders
When two outlets carry almost same merchandise, customers usually buy in the one that is more
appealing to them.

Thus, customers are attracted and kept by good layout i.e. good lighting, attractive colours, good
ventilation, air conditioning, modern design and arrangement and even music.

All of these things mean customer convenience, customer appeal and greater business volume. The
customer is always impressed by service, efficiency and quality.

Hence, the layout is essential for handling merchandise, which is arranged as per the space available and
the type and magnitude of goods to be sold keeping in mind the convenience of customers.

There are three kinds of layouts in retail operations today.

1. Self-service or modified self-service layout

2. Full service layout

3. Special layouts

The self-service layouts, cuts down on sales clerk’s time and allow customers to select merchandise for
themselves.
Customers should be led through the store in a way that will expose them to as much display area as
possible, e.g. Grocery Stores or department stores. In those stores, necessities or convenience goods
should be placed at the rear of the store.

The use of color and lighting is very important to direct attention to interior displays and to make the most
of the stores layout.

Full Service layouts: All operations are not self-service. Certain specialty enterprises sell to fewer numbers
of customers or higher priced product, e.g. Apparel, office machines, sporting goods, fashion items,
hardware, good quality shoes, jewelry, luggage and accessories, furniture and appliances are all examples
of products that require time and personal attention to be sold. These full service layouts provide area
and equipment necessary in such cases.

Special Layouts: Some layouts depend strictly on the type of special store to be set up, e.g. TV repair shop,
soft ice cream store, and drive-in soft drink stores are all examples of business requiring special design.
Thus, good retail layout should be the one, which saves rent, time and labour

3. Services centers and establishment

Services establishments such as motels, hotels, restaurants, must give due attention to client
convenience, quality of service, efficiency in delivering services and pleasing office ambience.

In today’s environment, the clients look for ease in approaching different departments of a service
organization and hence the layout should be designed in a fashion, which allows clients quick and
convenient access to the facilities offered by a service establishment.

LINE BALANCING
Line balancing in a layout refers to the arrangement of machine capacity with the aim of securing relatively
uniform flow at capacity operation. It is a layout having equal operating times at the
successive operations in the complete form of the process.

Line balancing is a useful tool in manufacturing, involving setting a planned rate of production for
necessary materials to be fabricated within a particular time frame thus assuring that every line section's
production quota can be met within the time frame using the available production capacity.

It is an efficient device that is used to develop the throughput of production lines and work cells in the
process decreasing manpower requirements and expenses.

Line balancing is intended to match the production output rate to the production plan enabling on time
delivery, with reduced surplus inventory level.

Line balancing is usually practiced to resolve problems occurring in production lines.

It is a technique to reduce imbalance between workers and workloads in order to accomplish required
run rate (H. Jay and R. Barry, 2006).

An unbalanced production line may lead to poor machinery utilization, a reason for product layout
requiring line balancing. A typical example is a production line with work stations A, B and C with each
having the capacity to produce 200 items, 100 items, and 50 items per hour respectively.
If each of the machines were to produce only 50 items per hour then each hour the machines at A and B
would be idle for 45 and 30 minutes respectively. Such a layout will be unbalanced and the production
line needs balancing.

Another example is a baking factory with its oven continuously baking loaves at the rate of 800 loaves per
hour and the wrapping machine only wrapping 400 loaves per hour. This kind of system is an unbalanced
system, thus requiring line balancing.

Objective of Line Balancing

• It assists in managing workloads among operators.

• It is used in recognizing the location of bottleneck.

• It is used in deciding the number of workstations.

• It assists in decreasing production cost.

• It helps in assigning task to each work station in such a way that there is little idle time.

Benefits of Line Balancing

• Helps eliminate bottleneck operations.

• Helps prevent unnecessary duplication of equipment capacity.

• Helps increase production efficiencies and rate.

Methods of Line Balancing

• The first and obvious possibility in the right direction is to increase the output.

• Another possibility is that another product be sent close to the first one so that some idle
machines are used jointly.

• The last possibility is to estimate the output of the last work station which can be considered as
the minimum output of all the intermediate work stations.

• A very important point to note while balancing a machine is that, it is important to see that output
of fastest machine be multiple of the output of the remaining other machines.

• Steps in Line Balancing

• There are four steps in solving line balancing described by G. Andrew (2006).

i) Draw the Precedence Diagram: Precedence diagram needs to be drawn to demonstrate task
relationship between workstations showing the sequence by which tasks are carried out, represented by
nodes or graph. The product should not be moved to the next station without completing the previous
station.

ii) Determine the Cycle Time: Cycle time is longest time allowed at each station. Cycle time can be gotten
by dividing the required units to production time available per day. This is the time expressed in minutes
between two simultaneous products coming out of the end of production line. It acts as an indicator to
showing how the line is set up to run at that instance, taking into consideration the entire production
quantities. Cycle time can be mathematically expressed as follows:

Cycle Time : Available time/Desired Output

iii) Assign tasks to the workstation: Distribute tasks to workstation after completing a time cycle in the
order of longest task times.

Number of Work Stations : M Task time/Desired actual Time

iv) Calculate the Line Efficiency: Line efficiency is calculated to find effectiveness of the line. The formula
is given by:

Line Efficiency: Sum of Task times/No. of work stations X Desired Cycle time

Maintenance
(Breakdown, Preventive and Predictive)
What is maintenance management?

Maintenance management is the process of scheduling, tracking, and managing a company's physical
assets and equipment.

The primary objectives of maintenance management are

Optimizing maintenance costs

Improving asset life cycles, and

Reducing unplanned equipment breakdowns

The type of maintenance planned for each asset depends on factors like the asset's impact on operations,
the bottom line, repair or replacement costs and many more.

Types of maintenance management

Businesses can utilize one of these three common maintenance management methods, either separately
or in conjunction, to build an efficient and cost-effective maintenance strategy:

• i) Reactive maintenance (also known as corrective or breakdown maintenance)

• ii)Preventive maintenance (also called planned preventive maintenance or preventative

maintenance)

• iii) Predictive maintenance

i) Corrective Maintenance
Corrective maintenance is what you need to do when something breaks; it is better known as repairs.
When a part of the property has ceased to operate properly, it is necessary to do corrective maintenance.

Some run the equipment in this manner. This model, called a Run to Fail (RTF) model means that there
are no other types of maintenance done on the equipment. Problems are only addressed as things break.

Using this model has few benefits.

• There is less work to be done on a regular basis, so this reduces labor costs.

• It might even reduce the need to have repair staff on site.

• However, this can lead to neglect of the equipment. Parts of the equipment that are left to fail in
this manner can also cause damage to secondary systems.

ii) Preventative Maintenance

Preventative Maintenance attempts to spread out the costs by planning activities on a regular basis.
Assets are regularly inspected, cleaned and have adjustments made to them by knowledgeable staff. Since
the maintenance is done on a schedule, assets will be addressed at a specific time, not when some type
of event occurs.

This schedule attempts to head off equipment and asset failures by “preventing” the failures before they
happen. By doing this secondary costs can also be reduced. A well maintained HVAC system will operate
more efficiently and have reduced energy consumption costs than one left to its own devices.

Preventative maintenance can be labor intensive and might require having on site staff to perform the
duties. While some failures can be prevented by using this schedule, others will occur regardless of the
amount of upkeep that is done. In spite of this, there is a cost savings potential overall when using this
plan over corrective maintenance schedules.

iii) Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance attempts to forecast when an asset is going to fail. This is done by monitoring the
asset and then using the data that is collected to prevent the failure before it occurs. If indications show
that some type of action needs to be taken, say lubrication of an HVAC pump, then that is performed.

Instead of working on a schedule, maintenance is driven by indications given by the equipment. Some
complex methods can be used to collect data including automatic and computerized reading of data.

Like the previous methodology, predictive maintenance can also keep equipment operating in a more
efficient manner. This method is also less labor intensive than other systems, but carries a more expensive
up front cost.

TPM and 5S
In a perfect world, machines would never break down, assembly lines would never stop, superior products
without defects would be produced, product quotas would always be met, and products would be picked
up and delivered on time.

But, unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. Sometimes things happen that throw production off schedule.
This is where Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) comes in.

TPM refers to the idea that operators are responsible for cleaning, maintaining, and improving their
workstations to ensure safety and quality during production cycles.

With TPM, the goal is to keep equipment working in optimal condition so that production processes move
smoothly without breakdowns or delays.

Like many methodologies used around the world to improve workflow, increase production, increase
quality, and decrease time to market, TPM was developed in Japan.

Total Productive Maintenance engages all employees in the effort to eliminate waste by improving the
operation, reliability, and efficiency of equipment used to manufacture products.

TPM shifts the responsibility of routine and preventative maintenance from members of the facilities or
maintenance team to the operators who actually work with the equipment.

This puts the people most familiar with the equipment in charge of making sure it runs at peak
performance.

When implemented properly, TPM tries to achieve the following goals:

No equipment failures

No stops

Faster and smoother production

No defects

Lower operating costs

A safer working environment

It’s similar to performing routine maintenance on a car. Regularly changing the oil, checking the belts,
changing the air filter, and rotating the tyres is cheaper than paying full price to fix a neglected car.

5S methodology
In the early 1900s, Henry T. Ford introduced the principle of CANDO, an acronym that stands for Cleaning
up, Arranging, Neatness, Discipline, and Ongoing improvement. About 50 years later, representatives
from Toyota visited Ford to learn how to mass-produce automobiles.

The Toyota team was impressed by the CANDO principle and adapted it for their purposes as 5S: Seiri,
Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuk.

These have been loosely translated into English as Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain—the
5 Ss.
i) Sort

This activity involves removing the things that are not needed in the workspace. For example, it’s
important to eliminate outdated materials or broken equipment that might otherwise get in your way. In
addition, operators should sort equipment and materials by frequency of use.

ii) Set in order

In this activity, operators put everything in its proper place. This makes it easy to find each item quickly
and reduces time wasted.

iii) Shine

Operators clean their workspace, equipment, and tools regularly to remove dust and dirt. Buildup of dust
and dirt can cause deterioration and corrosion which can cause machines and other equipment to break
down over time. Cleaning also promotes safety because it can help to prevent accidents.

iv) Standardize

This activity involves setting standard procedures for performing the first three 5S activities. All employees
need to be aware of the standards and should strictly adhere to them. Checklists and audits help to ensure
that operators complete tasks as they have been documented in a standard operating procedures guide.

v) Sustain

When things are running smoothly, teams should still meet regularly to review and audit current
operations and find where improvements can be made.

TPM pillars
There are eight pillars of TPM that are built on the 5S foundation. These pillars rely on operators, the
people who work with the machines and equipment every day, to perform proactive and preventative
measures to improve equipment reliability.

i) Autonomous maintenance

Each operator has the responsibility for cleaning, lubricating, inspecting, and maintaining the machines
and equipment they work with every day. This encourages employees to take ownership of the equipment
they use, helps them learn more about how the equipment operates, and frees up maintenance personnel
to work on more pressing matters.

ii) Planned maintenance

Planned or preventive maintenance is performed on schedules that are based on predicted or previously
measured equipment failure rates. Planned maintenance also takes into consideration the age of the
machine and how much it is used. This type of maintenance is done to prevent machine failure and
unplanned downtime.

iii) Quality maintenance

This involves monitoring machine performance to detect and prevent equipment errors during operation.
Use automated programs to do this to free up employees to work on other tasks. When errors happen,
do a root cause analysis to identify and eliminate the problem.

iv) Focused improvement

Small teams of stakeholders are formed to analyze production activities so they can identify and remove
anything that does not add value to the process or the final product. This method is meant to continually
improve equipment operation.

v) Early equipment management

Design improvements are made to equipment based on experience and knowledge gathered from
previous production and maintenance activities. Work with team members, suppliers, equipment
manufacturers, and other stakeholders to ensure that new machinery is able to meet planned
performance levels.

vi) Training and education

All employees from senior management to operators need to be trained in TPM methodologies so that
there are no knowledge gaps that could keep the organization from reaching its goals.

vii) Safety, health, and environment

A safe and healthy work environment for all employees is a critical facet of TPM. Safe and healthy workers
have better attitudes and are more productive. Providing a safe work environment helps to keep the
workplace accident-free.

viii)TPM in administration

TPM principles should extend beyond the production floor. Office workers, administrators, and managers
can apply TPM techniques in the office to increase productivity and reduce waste. For example, TPM can
help people determine whether all the meetings on the schedule are really necessary.

Reliability
Reliability is defined as the probability that a component, equipment or system will satisfactorily perform
its intended function under given circumstances.

Improving Reliability

Making failures less likely to happen in the first place (e.g. By maintaining the equipment properly or fitting
more reliable equipment)

Making changes such that the overall system continues to function satisfactorily even when a failure
occurs (e.g. by fitting standby equipment)

System reliability stands for the reliability of a system consisting of two or more components. It is difficult
to estimate the reliability of the system composing of many elements.

Method of determining system reliability

Following are the steps involved in one approach of finding the system reliability of a system consisting of
sub-system components.

• 1) Reliability of sub-systems and individual components of the system is determined.

• 2) Manner in which sub-systems and components are arranged in the system is identified. i.e.,
logical manner in which elements are arranged is represented in a block diagram.

• 3) Based on the manner in which the sub-systems are connected in the system, the probability
rules are applied to find the system reliability.

Types of configurations : Various types of configurations are:

i) Series configuration

In series configuration elements or components are arranged in a series. Figure shows a system
consisting of ‘n’ units which are connected in series. For the successful operation of the system it
is necessary that all ‘n’ units function satisfactorily. If the successful operation of each unit is
independent of the successful operation of the remaining units (for example heat dissipated by
the first unit which may be a resistor should not affect the performance of remaining units), then
system reliability is expressed as follows

Where, P(X1) is the reliability of the first unit, P(X2), reliability of the second unit and so on. So,
system reliability will be worse than the poorest component in the system. For example, if 0.6 is
the reliability of the component having the least reliability and other components has reliabilities
0.7, 0.8 and 0.9 connected in series then,

• The system failure rate is the sum of failure rates of individual components.

Where, ƛs is the failure rate of system and ƛi is the failure rates of individual components and ni
is the number of each component

ii) Parallel configuration

 In parallel configuration elements or components are arranged in a parallel. Figure shows a
system consisting of n units which are connected in parallel. In parallel configuration, satisfactory
functioning of any one of the elements leads the successful operation of the system. If ‘n’
elements are identical and independent of one another, then,

If two elements are connected in parallel, then the system reliability is found using the probability
expression.

Where, P(a) is the reliability of one element in the parallel configuration and P(b), the reliability
of other. Hence, P(S) is always greater than either P (a) or P(b).

• Mixed configuration

• In practice, the components of a system are not connected in simple series or parallel manner. A
simple structure of a non-series parallel structure is represented in the figure.

BATHTUB CURVE
The bathtub curve describes a particular form of a failure rate function which comprise three parts: early
failure, random failure and wear out failure.

It is the usual experience with equipment that the failure rate is quite high when the equipment is new or
newly installed.

The failure rate is greater during the initial starting period of infancy but after this initial period is over,
the failures are relatively quite low. Such a behavior can be approximated to a hyper exponential
distribution. Such behavior is a sign of the design defects or installation defects.

Therefore, those that had these inherent defects failed when the equipment were run. Those that failed
much later were those that did not have the design or installation defects. This is somewhat similar to the
infant mortality in humans.

At the other extreme, many equipment fail due to ageing and wear out. The failure or death may be at a
mean or average age, though some should/ could fail by a symmetrical bell shaped normal distribution.

In between the infancy and old age also the equipment may fail, but it is neither due to inherent design
or installation defects nor due to being worn out. The cause is external to the equipment and therefore,
can be approximated to a negative exponential distribution.
This is again similar to the behavior in humans, where they may die due to external causes such as an
epidemic or traffic accidents while they are neither old nor infants.

The three distributions mentioned above, hyper-exponential, negative exponential and normal, can be
confirmed into one distribution, termed as the weibull distribution.

Hence, the bath tub curve depicting the failure rate can be represented by a weibull distribution.

Weibull distributions calculations are very lengthy and tedious. Fortunately weibull graphs are available
for determining mean time between failures. This would provide good data for determining system
reliabilities, availabilities, expected lives, etc. Failure statistics can also be used in the diagnosis of the
nature of a recurrent equipment failure and also in the prescription of solutions to maintenance problems.

MTBF and MTTR

MTBF stands for mean time between failures. MTBF is used to identify the average time between failures
of something that can be repaired.

Mean time between failures is calculated by adding up all the lifespans of devices, and dividing by the
number of failures:

MTBF = total lifespan across devices / No. of failures

The total lifespan does not include the time it takes to repair the device after a failure.

An example of MTBF would be how long, on average, an operating system stays up between random
crashes.

MTTR
MTTR stands for mean time to repair, mean time to recovery, mean time to resolution, mean time to
resolve, mean time to restore, or mean time to respond. Mean time to repair and mean time to recovery
seem to be the most common.

Mean time to repair (and restore) is the average time it takes to repair a system once the failure is
discovered. It is calculated by adding the total time spent on repairing and dividing that by the number of
repairs.

MTTR (repair) = total time spent on repairing / No. of repairs

For example, let’s say three drives are pulled out of an array, two of which took 5 minutes to walk over
and swap out a drive. The third one took 6 minutes because the drive sled was a bit jammed. So:

(5 + 5 + 6) / 3 = 5.3 minutes MTTR

Mean time to repair assumes the system that has failed is capable of restoration, and does not require
replacement. It is synonymous with mean time to fix.

Mean time to recovery, resolution, and resolve is the time it takes from when something goes down to
the time that is back and at full functionality. This includes everything from finding the problem, to fixing
it.
MTTR (recovery) = total time spent on discovery & repairing / No. of repairs

Mean time to respond is the most basic of the bunch. Mean time to respond is the average time it takes
to respond to a failure.

Availability
Availability in its simplest form is the measure of uptime (the amount of time the system is performing its
mission) divided by the uptime plus downtime (the amount of time the system is not performing its
mission):

This ratio, convertible to a percentage, is the probability that the system is “available” for service when it
is needed.

Therefore, availability is the probability that the system can perform its mission when needed. Note that
even with 100 percent availability, 100 percent utilization may not be achievable.

This is due to downtime, which could be attributed to a lack of demand, poor planning for demand, lack
of operator skills, and so on. Many enterprises seek to operate their systems around the clock (24/7/365),
striving for maximum utilization to make the most of their investment.

In addition, availability has risen to prominence over the past several decades in industries such as
telecommunications, information technologies, and manufacturing as a key measure of a system’s quality.

There are many definitions for availability, but all contain the probability of a system operating as required
when required.

Hence, availability is the probability that a system will be available to perform its function when called
upon.

The "Nines" of Availability

In high-demand applications that are commonly in service 24/7, the availability is frequently measured by
the number of “nines.”

If availability is 99.0 percent, it is stated to be “2 nines,” and if it is 99.9 percent, it is called “3 nines,” and
so on.

Table below depicts the amount of downtime a system exhibits within one year (365 days) of continuous
(24/7) desired operation and its associated number of nines, which are calculated using this formula:

Downtime Allowed for 24/7/365 Usage Profile per Nines of Availability

Sl.No Total down time per year Availability

 1 36.5 days 1 nine (90%)

2 3.6 days 2 nines (99%)

3 8.7 hours 3 nines (99.9%)

4 52 minutes 4 nines (99.99%)

5 5 minutes 5 nines (99.999%)

6 30 seconds 6 nines (99.9999%)

7 3 seconds 7 nines (99.99999%)

8 0.3 seconds 8 nines (99.999999%)

Achieving greater than 4 nines of availability is a challenging task that often requires critical system
components that are redundant and hot-swappable.

Hot-swappable components can help reduce the time to repair a system, or mean time to repair (MTTR),
which enhances serviceability.

Reduced service time increases the availability. This is one way availability and serviceability are related.

Redundancy
Redundancy is the existence of more than one means for performing a required function.

Redundancy does not mean to have duplicate hardware. This involves deliberate creation of new parallel
paths in the system.

For example, to have generator and KSEB supply for power supply in a hospital.

In parallel configuration, satisfactory functioning of any one of the elements leads the successful
operation of the System.

Therefore redundancy is a simple method for improving the reliability of a system when the element
reliability cannot be increased.

Though successful operation of one of the elements is required for the success of the system, deliberate
use of both elements increases the probability of success of the system causing the system to be
redundant (surplus).

Few areas where redundancy is extensively used are: aircraft propulsion system, satellite communication
system, temperature control system for space vehicle, etc. Various approaches for introducing
redundancy are unit redundancy and component redundancy.