Availability and Reliability

Relationship Between Availability and Reliability
Availability is defined as the probability that the system is operating properly when it is requested
for use. In other words, availability is the probability that a system is not failed or undergoing a
repair action when it needs to be used. At first glance, it might seem that if a system has a high
availability then it should also have a high reliability. However, this is not necessarily the case.
This article will explore the relationship between availability and reliability and will also present
some of the specified classifications of availability.
Availability and Reliability
Reliability represents the probability of components, parts and systems to perform their required
functions for a desired period of time without failure in specified environments with a desired
confidence. Reliability, in itself, does not account for any repair actions that may take place.
Reliability accounts for the time that it will take the component, part or system to fail while it is
operating. It does not reflect how long it will take to get the unit under repair back into working
condition.
As stated earlier, availability represents the probability that the system is capable of conducting
its required function when it is called upon given that it is not failed or undergoing a repair action.
Therefore, not only is availability a function of reliability, but it is also a function of maintainability.
Table 1 below displays the relationship between reliability, maintainability and availability. Please
note that in this table, an increase in maintainability implies a decrease in the time it takes to
perform maintenance actions.
Table 1: Relationship between reliability, maintainability and availability.
As you can see from the table, if the reliability is held constant, even at a high value, this does not
directly imply a high availability. As the time to repair increases, the availability decreases. Even a
system with a low reliability could have a high availability if the time to repair is short.
Availability Classifications
The definition of availability is somewhat flexible, depending on what types of downtimes are
considered in the analysis. As a result, there are a number of different classifications of
availability. In BlockSim 6, the following availabilities can be obtained directly from simulation or
can be indirectly calculated with values returned from analysis:
• Point (instantaneous) availability

• Average up-time availability (mean availability)
• Steady state availability
• Operational availability
Point Availability
Point, or instantaneous, availability is the probability that a system (or component) will be
operational at any random time, t. This is very similar to the reliability function in that it gives a
probability that a system will function at the given time, t. Unlike reliability, the instantaneous
availability measure incorporates maintainability information. At any given time t, the system will
be operational if the following conditions are met:
1. It functioned properly during time t with probability R(t), or,

2. It functioned properly since the last repair at time u, 0 < u < t, with probability:
With m(u) being the renewal density function of the system.
The point availability is the summation of these two probabilities, or:
Mean Availability
The mean availability is the proportion of time during a mission or time-period that the system is
available for use. It represents the mean value of the instantaneous availability function over the
period (0, T):
Steady State Availability
The steady state availability of the system is the limit of the instantaneous availability function as
time approaches infinity. The instantaneous availability function approaches the steady state value
very closely at time approximate to four times the MTBF:
Operational Availability
Operational availability is a measure of availability that includes all experienced sources of

downtime, such as administrative downtime, logistic downtime, etc. The equation for operational
availability is:
(1)
where the operating cycle is the overall time period of operation being investigated and uptime is
the total time the system was functioning during the operating cycle.
When there is no logistic downtime or preventive maintenance specified, Eqn. (1) returns the
mean availability of the system. The system's availability measure returned in BlockSim
approaches the operational availability as more sources of downtime are specified, such as crew
logistic downtime, spares logistic downtime, restock logistic downtime, etc. In all other cases, the
availability measure is the mean availability. A separate availability measure, the point
availability, is also returned by BlockSim.
Note that the operational availability is the availability that the customer actually experiences. It
is essentially the a posteriori availability based on actual events that happened to the system. The
previous availability definitions are a priori estimations based on models of the system failure and
downtime distributions. In many cases, operational availability cannot be controlled by the
manufacturer due to variation in location, resources and other factors that are the sole province of
the end user of the product.

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Relationship Between Availability and Reliability

Availability and Reliability

Table 1: Relationship between reliability, maintainability and availability.

• Point (instantaneous) availability

1. It functioned properly during time t with probability R(t), or,

With m(u) being the renewal density function of the system.

The point availability is the summation of these two probabilities, or:

Steady State Availability

Operational availability is a measure of availability that includes all experienced sources of

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