System Availability Analysis

What is system availability analysis?

Availability is a metric that combines the concepts of reliability and maintainability. Availability gives the probability of a unit being available — not broken and not undergoing repair — when called upon for use. Industries that rely on certain key pieces of equipment have a powerful interest in being able to model and track the availability of these machines. So do the manufacturers of repairable systems, whose customers will have a keen interest in the availability of the products they are buying. System availability estimation is most frequently done through simulation.

Software features

BlockSim supports an extensive array of reliability block diagram (RBD) configurations and fault tree analysis (FTA) gates and events, including advanced capabilities to model complex configurations, load sharing, standby redundancy, phases and duty cycles. Using exact computations and/or discrete event simulation, BlockSim facilitates a wide variety of analyses for both repairable and non-repairable systems. This includes:

• System Reliability Analysis
• Identification of Critical Components (Reliability Importance Measures)
• Optimum Reliability Allocation
• System Maintainability Analysis (Determine Optimum Preventive Maintenance Intervals, Spare Parts Provisions, etc.)
• System Availability Analysis (Calculate Uptime, Downtime, Availability, etc.)
• Throughput Calculation (Identify Bottlenecks, Estimate Production Capacity, etc.)
• Life Cycle Cost Estimation