MAINTENANCE AND

MAINTANABILITY
We shall approach this topic by considering
the followings:
 Definitions of the two terms - maintenance
- maintainability
 Basic differences between the two terms
 Explanation of certain terms and
terminologies relating to maintainability.
 Some numerical examples
 Introduction to Maintenance Management *
1
Basic differences between
maintenance and maintainability
To differentiate between maintenance and
maintainability, we shall attempt to explain
the two terms separately
We shall first consider the definition of
maintenance:

2
 Maintenance

Maintenance is a combination of any

actions carried out to retain an item in or
restore it to normal operational standard.

3
Why carry out maintenance ?

The principal objectives of maintenance

are as stated below:
 To extend the useful life span of an item.
 To increase availability of installed
equipment
 To ensure operational readiness of all
equipment required particularly for
emergency purpose

4
Why carry out maintenance ? Cont.

 To ensure the safety of people

(personnel) using such equipment.
 To avoid exhorbitant expenses on the
repair of equipment which might occur if
the same equipment was not maintained
and then allow to fail.

5
 Maintainability
In a layman’s language, maintainability is
defined as the ease and speed with which
a failed item can be repaired and brought
back into service. However a more precise
definition is stated as follows:

6
Maintainability cont.

Maintainability is the probability that a unit

or system will be restored to operational
efficiency at a given period of time
when the maintenance action is
performed in accordance with
prescribed procedures.

7
Emphasis on the definition
 From the definition, it is clear that
maintainability can be quantified and can
assume a dimensionless numerical figure
that lies between 0 and 1, except if
expressed in percentage form.
 Maintainability figure should be kept as
high as possible if optimum use is to be
derived from a system.
 To achieve high maintainability, certain
factors must be considered.
8
Factors for high maintainability
 System location
 The efficiency and skill of the maintenance
crew and
 Availability of spare parts.
 It is also possible to increase
maintainability if we decide to put two
skilful and efficient men on a repair job
instead of one. The job will be completed
within a given time if done technically as
expected.
9
Aim of maintainability Engineer

The aim of maintainability engineer is to

design and develop systems / equipment
which can be maintained in the least
time, at the least cost and with a
minimum expenditure of supporting
resources without adversely affecting the
equipment performance or safety
characteristics.

10
Terms and terminologies relating
maintainability
In order to quantify our study of
maintainability, we should introduce some
terms / terminologies, which we shall
attempt to define:
Maintenance
action
The prescribed
operation to
repair a failed item

11
 Mean time to repair

Defined as the mean of the time required

to perform maintenance actions
This could be developed at the design
stage of a system by way of analyzing
the cogent maintenance tasks which will
be required to correct a fault.

12
Example of maintenance tasks

Fault localization

Fault isolation

Fault correction
(Removal, Replacement,
Reassembly and alignment or adjustment
and finally checkout)

13
Example of maintenance tasks
cont.
The mean time anticipated for the
operations listed earlier is obtained and
the MTTR is evaluated by using the
relationships
MTTR 
n  t
1 1 m1
.......... .......... ..............8.0
n  1 1

Where n1  quantity of similar parts

1  parts failure rate
t m1  predicted ma int enance operation time.

14
Maintenance action (repair) rate (µ)

• This is the number of maintenance

actions that can be carried out on a
particular item per hour or average
number of items (equipment) which can
be restored to normal working condition
per hour, assuming that there is no
waiting between repair jobs.
• Maintenance action rate (µ) is the
reciprocal of the MTTR, 1
  ...................8.1
i.e. MTTR
15
Maintenance time constraint: ( tm

This is defined as the permissible repair

time.
This leads us to maintainability equation

16
 Maintainability equation

The probability of completing one or more

maintenance actions is expressed
through the maintainability equation as
  tm   tm 
M  1 e  1  exp  ................8.2
 MTTR 

17
 Example1

The average time to repair any fault in a given

system is half an hour. Determine
maintainability of the system for a time of
2 12
2 12 hours.

18
 solution

From equation 8.2,

2 .5

M 1 e 0. 5

3
 1  ( 6.737 x 10 )
 0.993

19
 Note the followings:

 Itis therefore clear that the prediction of

maintainability involves establishing a
value for the MTTR of a system.
 A designer can only aim at a low value of
MTTR by considering such factor as
accessibility of components, and built-in
fault display units since accurate
assessment of MTTR is a difficult task.

20
 Utilisation factor (u):
This is defined as the ratio of the operating
time ( top) to the sum of the maintenance
time (t m), idle time (tid ) (which may occur
between completion of maintenance as a
result of administrative reasons) and the
operating time.
Mathematically, it can be expressed as
t op
U  ...............8.3
t m  t id  t op
21
 Availability (A)
This is defined as the probability that an item will
perform its required function at a stated
instant of time or over a stated period of time.
Considering equation 8.3, if the idle time is
equal to zero (ie tid = 0) and the mtce time
becomes as small as possible, then utilisation
factor will approach its maximum value, and
can be called availability of a unit or system.
Mathematically this can be expressed as
t op
A  U MAX  .....................8.4
t op  t m min 

22
 Availability (A) CONT.

From our previous knowledge of MTBF and

MTTF, the following assumptions are true.
i. t op  MTBF (mean time between failure)
ii. t m min   MTTR (mean time to repair)
Using these assumption in equation 8.3 above,
we have A  MTBF
....................... 8.5
MTBF  MTTR

23
 Example2

An electrical generating set designed for

continuous operation fails twice in a
period of 123 days. The total time for
repairs during the period is 3 days.
Determine the following parameters:
1) MTBF (days)
2) MTTR (days)
3) Availability

24
 solution
1) Total operating time = 123- 3 = 120 days
total number of failures = 2
MTBF = 120/2 = 60 days
total time for repair
2) MTTR 
total number of failures
3 1
 days or 1 day
2 2
MTBF
Availability 
MTBF  MTTR
3) 60
 X 100
60  3
2

 97.6 %

25
 Unavailability (A)

Unavailability of an equipment or system

due to breakdown is the complement of

availability. i.e. A  1  A or
 MTTR
Unavailability , A 
MTBF  MTTR
This is obtained by multiplying both sides
of equation 8.5 by -1 and adding 1 to
both sides of the result.

26
 Repairability

This is the probability that a unit or system

will be restored to operational efficiency
within a given ‘active repair time’ if
specified mtce is performed on it.
 Note: Active repair time is the time
during which technicians are actually
working on repairs, or doing some
adjustments etc.

27
 Maintenance action time

Maintenance action may consume time

due to the following activities which are
associated with it.
a) Reporting failure to the appropriate
staff.
b) The maintenance team or a
maintenance technician collects the
repair tools and possibly some spares
he guesses may be needed.

28
Maintenance action time cont.
c) Trying to verify the precise way in which the item
fails to function and consequently deciding to
disassemble some parts prior to the proper
commencement of fault diagnosis.
d) Locating the actual fault.
e) Sending for additional spares, replacement etc,
if the need arises.
f) Carrying out the actual repairs or replacing a
faulty unit with a good one and making any
adjustments, if necessary.
g) Testing the item after repairs to ensure
satisfactory performance.

29
 Note the followings
i. It is clear that the ‘maintenance action time’ is
the sum total of the times spent on all the
activities listed (a-g) earlier.
ii. Active repair time: this is the time during which
actual repair work, adjustments etc are carried
out by the maintenance technicians. This
period is covered by activities (c)-(g) with the
exception of (e)
iii. Logistics time: this is part of the total repair
time and represents the time taken to obtain all
the repair tools, materials and spares etc and
the movement of repair crew to the failed item.
It is covered by activities (b) and (c).
30
 Note the followings cont.

iv.Administrative time
This is the time which is not specifically
allocated to either active repair or logistics.
This includes the time lost due to the non-
availability of maintenance staff, partly as a
result of meal breaks (ie tea break or lunch
time) or because the maintenance
technician needed for the repair job is yet to
complete a previous job etc. This time may
be covered by the activities (a) and (e).

31
Steady-state Availability (Ass)

Steady-state availability is the proportion of

time that a system is available for use
when the overall period is of
considerable duration. Since availability
of a repairable system is a function of its
failure rate, , and of its repair rate, µ,
equation 8.5 can be put in another form
to read A 
ss
MTBF
MTBF  MTTR

32
Steady-state Availability (Ass) cont.

MTBF
ASS 
MTBF  MTTR
1

 1
  1



 ASS  .......................8.7
 
On the other hand , unavailability can be exp ressed as :

Steady  state unavailability, ASS  1  ASS
 
 ASS  .............................8.8
 

33
Availability of items in series and
parallel combinations
Availabilities of sub-units can be combined
in the same way as reliabilities. The
availability of a system, As consisting of n
sub-units in series with availabilities A1,
A2, …,An respectively is given by
As = A1A2….An ………8.9
Similarly, for parallel connection, the
availability Ap = 1-[(1-A1)(1-A2)…(1-An)]
………… 8.10
34