Availability allocation through importance measures

Purpose – To define availability importance measures in order to calculate the criticality of each component or subsystem from the availability point of view and also to demonstrate the application of such importance measures for achieving optimal resource allocation to arrive at the best possible availability.Design/methodology/approach – In this study the availability importance measures of a component are defined as a partial derivative of the system availability with respect to the component availability, failure rate, and repair rate. Analyses of these measures for a crushing plant are performed and the results are presented. Furthermore, a methodology aimed at improving the availability of a system using the concept of importance measures is identified and demonstrated by use of a numerical example.Findings – The availability importance measure of a component/subsystem is an index which shows how far an individual component contributes to the overall system availability. The research study indicates...

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