Title
Optimal inspection intervals for safety systems with partial inspections.
Abstract
The introduction of International Standard IEC 61508 and its industry-specific derivatives sets demanding requirements for the definition and implementation of life-cycle strategies for safety systems. Compliance with the Standard is important for human safety and environmental perspectives as well as for potential adverse economic effects (eg, damage to critical downstream equipment or a clause for an insurance or warranty contract). This situation encourages the use of reliability models to attain the recommended safety integrity levels using credible assumptions. During the operation phase of the safety system life cycle, a key decision is the definition of an inspection programme, namely its frequency and the maintenance activities to be performed. These may vary from minimal checks to complete renewals. This work presents a model (which we called rho beta model) to find optimal inspection intervals for a safety system, considering that it degrades in time, even when it is inspected at regular intervals. Such situation occurs because most inspections are partial, that is, not all potential failure modes are observable through inspections. Possible reasons for this are the nature and the extent of the inspection, or potential risks generated by the inspection itself. The optimization criterion considered here is the mean overall availability A(o), but also taking into account the requirements for the safety availability A(s). We consider several conditions that ensure coherent modelling for these systems: sub-systems decomposition, k-out-of-n architectures, diagnostics coverage (observable/total amount of failure modes), dependent and independent failures, and non-negligible inspection times. The model requires an estimation for the coverage and dependent-failure ratios for each component, global failure rates, and inspection times. We illustrate its use through case studies and compare results with those obtained by applying previously published methodologies. Journal of the Operational Research Society (2011) 62, 2051-2062. doi: 10.1057/jors.2010.173 Published online 29 December 2010
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1057/jors.2010.173
JORS
Keywords
Field
DocType
management science,computer science,inventory,logistics,operational research,forecasting,internal standard,safety integrity level,investment,life cycle,communications technology,information systems,operations research,scheduling,information technology,production,reliability,location,failure mode,project management,failure rate,marketing
Information system,System safety,IEC 61508,Computer science,Warranty,Redundancy (engineering),Purchasing,System lifecycle,Operations management,Project management
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
62
12
0160-5682
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.37
6
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
R. Pascual18210.83
Darko M. Louit210.37
Andrew K. S. Jardine3675.95