Availability Assessment

ΩPS Analyzer User Group Meeting2013 November 13

by Greg van Bavel

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Overview

• Continuous development of ΩPS Analyzer– Analysis of “repairs and spares”

• Availability– So many definitions, so little time…

– Some new applications

– Connection to EBO, ISS, PBA, etc

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Introduction

• Equipment maintained by a policy of repair-by-replacement

• Impact on availability: – If no in-service support (ISS) is available, then the

system is not available– If no spare is available, then the system is not

available

• Complex system– Multi-indenture system supported by a network of

multi-echelon, geographically dispersed facilities

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In-Service Support (ISS)

• All activities, including, but not limited to, engineering services (such as maintenance, repair, test and upgrade), logistics (such as parts supply, documentation and training) and related management functions, necessary to maintain a CF platform throughout its service life.

– DND Defence Terminology Bank

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ΩPS Analyzer Back-Story

• Foundational work began in the 1980s – Where: Department of National Defence (DND)– Then: Operational Research Division (ORD) – Now: Centre for Operational Research and Analysis

(CORA)• DND partnered with Pennant Canada to further

develop these tools into an integrated Windows™ based application in the 2000s

• Continuous development of tools, for example– Level of Repair Analysis (LORA) – Life Cycle Costing (LCC)– Sparing Analysis

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Continuous Development

• A practical approach to dealing with the way technology and tools are actually changing– The cycle: formulation → implementation →

application → formulation …

• Requires collaborators who can tolerate uncertainty, change and open-endedness

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Level of Repair Analysis

• LORA goal: to determine the configuration of ISS to minimize cost

• Fixed costs: – Independent of replaceable-part failures– Examples: test facilities, personnel, tools

• Variable costs:– Depend upon number of failures– Examples: surge-capability HR, transportation

of spares

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Sparing Analysis

• Goal: to allocate inventory within the ISS network such that an affordable Expected Backorder (EBO) is achieved

• Minimizing EBO is roughly equivalent to maximizing availability

• Principal trade-off: holding cost increases as EBO decreases

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Availability – Some Definitions 1

• Basic: fraction of time that the system is operable

• Inherent: ideal state of the system– Ignores preventative maintenance and

various delays found in practice

• Achieved: preventative maintenance included– Ignores logistics and administrative delays

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Availability – Some Definitions 2

• Operational: accounts for corrective and preventative maintenance, as well as downtime prior to maintenance– Includes “induced” failures (e.g., ISS itself

causes a malfunction)

• ASOAR: Achieving a System Operational Availability Requirement– Uses “calendar time” to handle systems with

component-dependent operating tempos

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Key Distinction

• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)– Reciprocal of the operating-time failure rate

Versus

• Mean Calendar Time Between Failures (MCTBF)– Reciprocal of the calendar-time failure rate

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Achievable Platform Availability Utility (APAU)

• Availability is a key factor in materiel acquisition and support– Definition phase: establish Performance-

Based Accountability (PBA) requirements– Implementation phase: check feasibility of ISS

solution

• APAU requires data regarding equipment specifications, maintenance capabilities, and logistics-support services

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Performance-Based Accountability (PBA)

• Pay for results, not effort

• Policies and procedures designed to ensure that payment is directly related to performance in the delivery of products or services, rather than the completion of project milestones and/or deliverables

• Expected to reduce costs and improve outcomes (materiel acquisition & support)

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APAU – Main Features

• Computes several types of availability indicators• Allows various logistics support configuations• Quantifies relationship between Mean Logistics

Downtime (MLDT) and other availability data• Uses a cost-to-failure rate ratio to allocate MLDT• Uses MCTBF to handle systems with

components that have different operating tempos– Not all sub-systems are ‘on’ simultaneously

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APAU – Further Development

• Use Halifax class data to prepare APAU for Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC)– Start with a well-known sub-system and then

add other sub-systems

• Develop practical methods– Increasing complexity during the iterative

design of the CSC– Collecting and pre-processing more and more

data to obtain required inputs

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Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC)

• Replaces both Halifax class figates and Iroquois class destroyers

• Part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS)

• Industry engagement based on the Statement of Requirements– Ship design, costs, timelines …and ISS too

• PBA (or some variant) will be applied

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Availability Discrete Event Simulator (ADES)

• Generic simulation– Runs on calendar time

• Combines three principal aspects of military operations that affect availability– Mission generation– Fleet

• Hierarchy: Holding areas / platforms / components

– ISS capabilities• Three lines of maintenance

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ADES – Main Features

• Models platform running states, failure events, and repair processes

• Offers twenty probability distributions• Uses standard quantities as input

– E.g., Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), scheduled maintenance periods, etc.

• Provides fleet availability as main output– Other outputs include total time (of simulation),

uptime, downtime, mission time, idle time, etc.

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Summary

• Availability is a key quantity in materiel acquisition and support– APAU: Calculates availability given

manufacturer’s specifications or DND observations (snapshot)

– ADES: Calculates availability by simulating the time-development of a fleet’s missions, platforms, and ISS activities (movie)

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Conclusion

• Availability assessment is an analytical capability that is aligned with current and emerging government policies– Continuous development – Industry engagement throughout all MA&S

phases (options definition to disposal)– NSPS– ISS– PBA

Questions?

Gregory van BavelDirectorate Materiel Group Operational Research (DMGOR)Édifice Louis Saint Laurent555 Boulevard de la CarrièreGatineau, QCJ8Y 6R5

Tel: 819-997-9189E-mail: gregory.vanbavel@forces.gc.ca