Reliability Engineering and Maintenance in Finnish Industry

Since 1996 eleven Finnish companies have participated in the research project which objective was to develop computer supported probabilistic based method for the development of the equipment’s and systems’ reliability and safety. The ideal design approach is one of those problem areas, delaying production and weaken equipments’ and systems’ reliability, availability and safety, are discovered and solved during the design stage. The participating companies are both manufacturers and users in metal, energy, process and electronics industries. Their products and systems have to correspond to high safety and reliability demands. The research project was carried out by Tampere University of Technology and it was completed in February 2005. The research work was divided in three parts: modelling and analysis of causes and consequences of failures, specification and allocation of reliability, availability and maintainability requirements, simulation and calculation of reliability performance and maintenance costs. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the design methods developed in the research project and tested in numerous Finnish industry companies. Artekus Oy (www.artekus.fi) is responsible for commercializing, marketing and technical support of the developed computer software.