Developing an economical model for reliability allocation of an electro-optical system by considering reliability improvement difficulty, criticality, and subsystems dependency

Abstract

The nature of electro-optical equipment in various industries and the pursuit of the goal of reducing costs demand high reliability on the part of electro-optical systems. In this respect, reliability improvement could be addressed through a reliability allocation problem. Subsystem reliability must be increased such that the requirements as well as defined requisite functions are ensured in accordance with the designers’ opinion. This study is an attempt to develop a multi-objective model by maximizing system reliability and minimizing costs in order to investigate design phase costs as well as production phase costs. To investigate reliability improvement feasibility in the design phase, effective feasibility factors in the system are used and the sigma level index is incorporated in the production phase as the reliability improvement difficulty factor. Thus, subsystem reliability improvement priorities are taken into consideration. Subsystem dependency degree is investigated through the design structure matrix and incorporated into the model’s limitation together with modified criticality. The primary model is converted into a single-objective model through goal programming. This model is implemented on electro-optical systems, and the results are analyzed. In this method, reliability allocation follows two steps. First, based on the allocation weights, a range is determined for the reliability of subsystems. Afterward, improvement is initiated based upon the costs and priorities of subsystem reliability improvement.