Bilevel control of degraded machining system with warm standbys, setup and vacation

In this paper, we study (N, L) switch-over policy for machine repair model with warm standbys and two repairmen. The repairman (R₁) turns on for repair only when N-failed units are accumulated and starts repair after a set up time which is assumed to be exponentially distributed. As soon as the system becomes empty, the repairman (R₁) leaves for a vacation and returns back when he finds the number of failed units in the system greater than or equal to a threshold value N. Second repairman (R₂) turns on when there are L(>N) failed units in the system and goes for a vacation if there are less than L failed units. The life time and repair time of failed units are assumed to be exponentially distributed. The steady state queue size distribution is obtained by using recursive method. Expressions for the average number of failed units in the queue and the average waiting time are established.     

k-out-of-n-system with repair:T-policy

We consider a k-out-of-n system with repair underT-policy. Life time of each component is exponentially distributed with parameter λ. Server is called to the system after the elapse ofT time units since his departure after completion of repair of all failed units in the previous cycle or until accumulation ofn — k failed units, whichever occurs first. Service time is assumed to be exponential with rateμ.T is also exponentially distributed with parameter α. System state probabilities in finite time and long run are derived for (i) cold (ii) warm (iii) hot systems. Several characteristics of these systems are obtained. A control problem is also investigated and numerical illustrations are provided. It is proved that the expected profit to the system is concave in α and hence global maximum exists.     

Multi-server machine repair problems under a (V, R) synchronous single vacation policy

This paper considers a machine repair problem with M operating machines and S standbys, in which R repairmen are responsible for supervising these machines and operate a (V, R) vacation policy. With such policy, if the number of the failed machines is reduced to R − V (R > V) (there exists V idle repairmen) at a service completion, these V idle servers will together take a synchronous vacation (or leave for other secondary job). Upon returning from the vacation, they do not take a vacation again and remain idle until the first arriving failed machine arrives. The steady-state probabilities are solved in terms of matrix forms and the system performance measures are obtained. Algorithmic procedures are provided to deal with the optimization problem of discrete/continuous decision variables while maintaining a minimum specified level of system availability.     

Analysis of R out of N systems with several repairmen,exponential life times and phase type repair times: An algorithmic approach

An R out of N repairable system consisting of N independent components is operating if at least R components are functioning. The system fails whenever the number of good components decreases from R to R − 1. A failed component is sent to a repair facility having several repairmen. Life times of working components are i.i.d random variables having an exponential distribution. Repair times are i.i.d random variables having a phase type distribution. Both cold and warm stand-by systems are considered. We present an algorithm deriving recursively in the number of repairmen the generator of the Markov process that governs the process. Then we derive formulas for the point availability, the limiting availability, the distribution of the down time and the up time. Numerical examples are given for various repair time distributions. The numerical examples show that the availability is not very sensitive to the repair time distribution while the mean up time and the mean down time might be very sensitive to the repair time distributions.     

具有修理延迟的两不同部件冷贮备系统的可靠性分析

研究了有修理延迟的两个不同部件和两个修理工组成的冷贮备系统.假定部件的工作寿命服从一般分布,故障后的延迟修理时间和修理时间均服从指数分布.利用马尔可夫更新过程、拉普拉斯变换和拉普拉斯-司梯阶变换工具,得到了系统的首次故障前时间、可用度和平均故障次数等可靠性指标.     

Cost-benefit analysis of one-server n-unit adaptive system with slow switch

This paper considers a shared parallel system consisting of n-units supported by single service facility to carry out both installation and repair of a unit. Initially, all the n units share the total load equally and when one or more units fail, they go for repair while the other surviving units share the entire load equally till the failed units are ready for operation after installation. The installation time (switchover time) of a repaired unit is assumed to be non-negligible and random. The system will be down when all the units are non-operative , Assuming that the failure rates are different when the units function under varying loads, the system characteristics, namely, (1) the expected up-time of the system during (0, t], (2) the expected repair time of the units which failed due to varying failure rates during (0, t] and (3) the expected time spent by the units in the installation state during the period (0, t], are obtained by identifying the system at suitable regeneration epochs. The repair time and the switchover time of the units are arbitrarily distributed. The failure rate of unit is assumed to be constant. It depends on the number of surviving units at any instant. The cost-benefit analysis is also carried out using these system characteristics     

Evaluating a warm standby system with components having proportional hazard rates

This paper investigates the heterogeneity of components with proportional hazard rates in a redundant system. The total number of those standbys surviving the failure time of some active component is derived, and the algorithm to determine the optimal number of standbys is also discussed.     

A Markov time related to a robot-safety device system

We consider a robot-safety device system attended by two different repairmen. The twin-system is characterized by the natural feature of cold standby and an admissible risky state. Apart from tangible results obtained in the previous Literature, we introduce a Markov time called the recovery time of the system. In order to obtain the corresponding distribution, we employ a stochastic process endowed with time dependent state probabilities related to the point availability of a renewable robot without safety device. Finally, as an example, we consider the case of Weibull repair (for the robot) and deterministic repair (for the safety device). We provide several computer-plotted graphs obtained by advanced numerical methods. Received: February 2004 / Revised version: October 2004MSC classification: 60K10     

On the M/G/1 queue with feedback and optional server vacations based on a single vacation policy

We study a single server queue with batch arrivals and general (arbitrary) service time distribution. The server provides service to customers, one by one, on a first come, first served basis. Just after completion of his service, a customer may leave the system or may opt to repeat his service, in which case this customer rejoins the queue. Further, just after completion of a customer's service the server may take a vacation of random length or may opt to continue staying in the system to serve the next customer. We obtain steady state results in explicit and closed form in terms of the probability generating functions for the number of customers in the queue, the average number of customers and the average waiting time in the queue. Some special cases of interest are discussed and some known results have been derived. A numerical illustration is provided.     

Reliability analysis of a three unit warm standby redundant system with repair

Two-unit warm standby redundant systems have been investigated extensively in the past. The most general model is the one in which both the lifetime and repair time distributions of the units are arbitrary. However the study of standby systems with more than two units, though very important, has received much less attention, possibly because of the built-in difficulties in analyzing them. Such systems have been studied only when either the lifetime or the repair time is exponentially distributed. When both these distributions are general, the problem appears to be intractable even in the case of cold standby systems. The present contribution is an improvement in the state of art in the sense that a three unit warm standby system is shown to be capable of comprehensive analysis. In particular we show that there are imbedded renewal points that render the analysis possible. Using these imbedded renewal points we obtain the reliability and availability functions. Emeritus Deceased 23rd December 2003.