Relevance of Availability Evaluation Methodologies to Consumer Products Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

Although the development of reliability evaluation techniques were first applied to systems in which failure can result in severe physical and environmental consequences (aerospace, military, nuclear) it has also been applied on a very large scale in the offshore and chemical industries to a very wide range of areas primarily of economic concern.

Application of these techniques to consumer products such as cars, electrical household appliances has been generally on a relatively limited scale with only a few notable exceptions.

However examining current trends, it can be anticipated that reliability evaluation will become an increasingly important feature in the design and operation of engineering systems in general including relatively simple ones.

In this paper, reliability and availability analysis methodologies suitable forsuch production systems is proposed and validated and demonstrated with case study example drawn from the soft drink industry.

Economic implications of cost availability are discussed with special reference to inhouse training. The importance of incorporating reliability in the earliest stages of design is highlighted.