Introduction:

It is not uncommon for a company to have 10, 20 or more engineering project in progress at any one time for a given piece of equipment or product line. With so many projects, how can a company prioritize resources?  If the company has reliability or maintenance cost goals, what will be the impact of these changes?  Are all of the changes required to meet reliability goals?  If not, what is the best combination of upgrades that will meet performance goals for the least cost?

Sandia has extensive experience in helping equipment manufacturers address this type of problem. The process usually begins with a baseline reliability model  representing the current system. From this baseline, the reliability impact of different engineering projects can be estimated, as can the cost of the change.  Sandia has developed software that can perform an optimization analysis for this problem, finding the best combination of engineering changes that meet or exceed the performance goals at the lowest cost.  The following figure  shows how the optimal set of upgrades can depend on the available budget.

Figure 1. Optimal Upgrades for Various Budgets.

Benefits:

• Improves understanding of system reliability and reliability problem areas.
• Saves money by identifying the most cost effective combination of modifications.
• Helps avoid spending time and money on modifications with insignificant impact.
• Provides an excellent design management tool.

Capabilities:

• Develop baseline model to represent system prior to modifications.
• Estimate the effects of individual upgrades or modifications.
• Find the optimal set of upgrades or modifications that meets budget limitations.