Estimation of Time between Failures and Time to Repairs of a Repairable System Based On Performance Data

Breakdowns in Oil & Gas processing plants can have significant impact on the
productivity of a business. When equipment breakdowns happen, the cost can go well
beyond the period of repair. Hence the availability, that is, the probability that the
system is functioning at a given time, is the most significant measure for evaluating the
effectiveness of a repairable system. The estimation of the availability function is not, in
general, an easy task. This study concentrates particularly on rotating equipments in gas
processing plants such as pumps. The aim of this paper is to estimate the reliability,
availability and maintainability of a repairable system. A composite measure of
reliability and maintainability parameters has been proposed for measuring the system
performance using Microsoft Excel and mathematical models such as Weibull
distribution and lognormal distribution. When the reliability and maintainability can be
estimated, the availability of the rotating equipment can be known. The results
concluded show that the availability of these equipments and the importance of
reliability and maintainability measures can be used as a guideline for managing the
availability improvement of the repairable system.