Reliability Engineering: A Life Cycle Approach

Reliability Engineering – A Life Cycle Approach is based on the author’s knowledge of systems and their problems from multiple industries, from sophisticated, first class installations to less sophisticated plants often operating under severe budget constraints and yet having to deliver first class availability. Taking a practical approach and drawing from the author’s global academic and work experience, the text covers the basics of reliability engineering, from design through to operation and maintenance. Examples and problems are used to embed the theory, and case studies are integrated to convey real engineering experience and to increase the student’s analytical skills. Additional subjects such as failure analysis, the management of the reliability function, systems engineering skills, project management requirements and basic financial management requirements are covered. Linear programming and financial analysis are presented in the context of justifying maintenance budgets and retrofits. The book presents a stand-alone picture of the reliability engineer’s work over all stages of the system life-cycle, and enables readers to: Understand the life-cycle approach to engineering reliability Explore failure analysis techniques and their importance in reliability engineering Learn the skills of linear programming, financial analysis, and budgeting for maintenance Analyze the application of key concepts through realistic Case Studies This text will equip engineering students, engineers and technical managers with the knowledge and skills they need, and the numerous examples and case studies include provide insight to their real-world application. An Instructor’s Manual and Figure Slides are available for instructors.

Table of Contents:
Reliability Fundamentals The Importance of Reliability History Definitions Acronyms Basic Statistics Probability Regression Analysis Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) Design for Reliability Examples from Civil Engineering – Bridges and Structures Examples from Mechanical Engineering – Pressure Vessels Design for Maintainability Factors of Safety and Probabilistic Design Assignments Case Study: Weibull Analysis at the New Era Fertilizer Plant Case Study: The Life History of a Hillman Vogue Saloon Case Study: The Woodruff Key Problem System Reliability A Note of Caution System Configurations System Reliability Prediction Availability and Maintainability The Maintainability Equation The Equations for System Availability Storage Capacity Reduced Capacity States Other Forms of System Reliability Analysis Interconnections Laplace Analysis Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Assignment: FMEA of a Scraper Winch Fault Tree Analysis Assignments Maintenance Optimisation Why Maintenance? Know your Plant and Keep it Good as New How Maintenance Actions Affect Failure Data Collection Maintenance Optimisation Total Productive Maintenance, TPM Semantics in Maintenance Management ISO 55　000 Wrench Time Estimating Job Times Case Study: Maintenance at Automotive Pressings Case Study: RCM at Dragon Peak Case Study: RCM at Tiger Substation Case Study: Crowning a Hangar Queen Case Study: A Strange Case of TPM Case Study: Challenger Case Study: Electric Motor Maintenance Regimes Condition Monitoring The Four Kinds of Maintenance The Major Types of Condition Monitoring Vibration Monitoring Oil Analysis Thermography Incident Investigation or Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Introduction Scope Applicability Authority Definitions Abbreviations and Acronyms Root Cause Analysis Incident Investigation Techniques The Nature of Failure The Black Decades (the 1970’s and the 1980’s) Human Causes of Failure Case Study: Chernobyl Case Study: Piper Alpha Case Study: Flixborough Case Study: The Hyatt Regency Hotel, Kansas City Case Study: The Embraer 120 Aircraft Crash Case Study: Three Mile Island Other Techniques Essential for Modern Reliability Management - I Configuration Management (CM) Case Study: Poor CM Codification and Coding Systems Short Description Long Description Technical Dictionaries Advantages of the NATO system Master Data ISO 22745 Non-military Applications of Master Data Coding by Colour or Stamping Modern Trends in Codification Lubrication Reverse Engineering: The Importance of Reverse Engineering Case Studies Other Techniques Essential for Modern Reliability Management - II Financial Optimisation: I Use in maintenance budget optimisation and retrofit justification Case Study: The Pulveriser Tender Financial Optimisation – II System Simulation Simulation Example: Stock Control to Optimise Availability Monte Carlo Simulation using Random Number Generation Reliability Analysis Software using Monte Carlo Simulation Linear Programming Case Study: Optimisation of Maintenance Design for Operability and its Effect on Human Reliability Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) – the Interface with Reliability Queuing Theory: Its use in setting maintenance staff numbers Project Management: Its use in Retrofits and Outage Management

About the Author :
Edgar Bradley is a Consultant, specializing in Benchmarking, Human Capital Evaluation and RAM work (Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability). His qualifications include a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (1964) and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Akron, Ohio, USA (1969) as well as an MBA from Cranfield University, in the UK (1975). For over 40 years he has also served as a lecturer in the Faculty of Industrial Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, lecturing and developing courses on the MSc programme on inter alia, Reliability Engineering, Maintenance Engineering, Project Management, Industrial Marketing and Systems Engineering. He has also lectured in Reliability Engineering at the University of Pretoria. In 2013 he was appointed as lecturer in Quality at the Namibian University of Science and Technology. He has commenced lectures in Reliability Engineering this year at North West University as well. For the past seven years he has worked as a Mechanical Consulting Engineer, giving consulting and training to the petroleum and other industries in the Middle East and in Southern Africa.

Review :
"Unique approach between theory and practice throughout the life cycle, with many real case study examples from all branches of engineering. An ideal text at the post graduate level for all engineers responsible for maintenance management." —John Sheer, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa "This is an excellent introduction to the subject of reliability for the non-technical reader. In addition, it’s also a very good, and quite thorough, review and reference for the technically proficient. The authors descriptions of the various operations involved in reliability calculations were clear and precise. I was particularly impressed with the use of numerical examples of calculations as this allows the student and/or reader to check himself out on these procedures. The use of graphics was excellent as I believe this contributes much more to understanding concepts than are paragraphs of words alone." —John M. Berner, Applications Research, Inc., USA