Analysis for Influence of Maintenance and Manufacturing Quality on Reliability of Repairable Systems

Abstract

Reliability of a repairable system is usually modeled by a failure point process with system age as underlying variable. The system may undergo a reliability improvement process due to possible technology upgrades as well as manufacturing or/and maintenance quality improvement. New methods are needed to evaluate their influence on the reliability. This chapter aims to address this issue through introducing a maintenance experience measure and concept of system technology age. They are used as the underlying variables to analyze the influence of the maintenance and manufacturing quality on the reliability, respectively. A signal-to-noise-ratio-based cluster analysis approach is also proposed to identify the change point of a function. The proposed approach can be used to determine whether or not the system undergoes a reliability growth. These concepts, approach and their appropriateness are illustrated through analyzing a real-world example that deals with a fleet of air conditioning systems of jet airplanes. The results show that the maintenance quality is poor and the fleet may undergo a reliability growth due to manufacturing quality improvement rather than due to technology upgrade.