1. What are the main reasons why operation fails?

Answer:
 Definition of failure

When product, system or component no longer performs its required functions, its is
said to have failed. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect
ones that affect the customer, and can be potential or actual. In somehow, failure
may not attributable by the product or its components, its may be attributable to
faulty operation of the product by users. However, in operation management, we use
the term failure to denote a more dramatic event. Usually we mean something
stopping to do what it should do. Example: a piece of material fails, or a process
fails. Yet not all failures are equally serious. Some are incidentally and may not be
noticed. Sometime, the failure of one components of system may jeopardize to the
whole system. Example: Leaking of hydraulics in car and prisoner not inform his or
her rights can put the whole process in danger.

 Results Of failure

More than that, the results of failure can cause to the loss of financial and loss of
consumer confidence. Example: according to reported for this year 2010, Toyota
had recalled 270,000 vehicles worldwide because of an engine fault and these has
made company lost a lot of money and these problems is a serious blow to the
company has already battered reputation and has made consumer loss their
confidence o Toyota.

 Impacts of failure
Beside that, failure can also impact the social such as harmful consumer’s life and
country’s reputation. Example: poison milk powder in china have killed and sickened
many babies and this problem has been shaken many investors and consumers
over the world reluctant to import the milk produced in china.

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  Consequences of failure:

Operation failure can cause consequence to company such as the loss of

investment and also lead to loss morale among employees, an increase in cynicism
and Damage Company’s image.

Example: According to the reported incident of JAL airlines on January 19, 2010,
JAL declares bankruptcy. JAL expects to receive a ¥300 billion cash injection and
have debts worth ¥730 billion waived, in exchange for which it will cut its capital to
zero, cut unprofitable routes and reduce its workforce by 15,700 employees-a third
of its 47,000 total. The consequences of JAL suffered were shares of JAL were
delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on February 20, 2010, loss of customers
trust and thus loss of income.

Why systems fail?

Failure in an operation can occur because the failed machine operator, customers
might make unexpected demand which operation failed to meet, the stuff may make
simple error in their job which prevents normal working, and material from supplier
could be faulty and so on.

 Design failures:

Design is an activity that can be approached at different level of detail. The overall
design of an operation can prove to be the main reason cause of failure. In this
stage, an operation might look fine on paper, only when it has to cope with real
circumstances might inadequacies become evident. Some design failure occur
because of characteristics of demand was incorrect calculation and lack of design
standard. Example: A production line might have installed in a factory which in
practice cannot cope with the demand placed on it. There may be no unexpected

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demand placed on the operations, a straightforward error in translation the
requirements of demand into an adequate design may have been the cause. Also,
design failure can cause because of the wrong assumptions. Example: production
line might have been installed a certain pack size but then
the market demand larger pack size which cause the machine to jam occasionally.
Other design failures occur because of unexpected circumstances, improper
treatment and lower grade component. Example: if company manufacturing he sofa,
and the size of sofa does not fit to lift or gate in which area those people are staying.

- Facilities failure:

Facilities such as machines, equipments, building and fitting of an operation are

liable to breakdown. The “breakdown” may be only partial, for example the machine
which can work at only half its normal rate. Alternatively, it can be a total and sudden
cessation of operation. Either way is it the effect of a breakdown which are
important. Example: a computer failure in supermarket chan can paralyze a several
large stores until it is repaired. Other failure might have a strongly impact only if they
occur at the exactly the same time as other failures.

 People failure:

Furthermore, operation failure also cause because of people such as stuffs and
managers. Surprisingly enough, employees sometime fail because they simply do
not know what is expected to them. Some employees do not have any knowledge
the whole process of operation. People failure comes in two types which is errors
and violations. “Errors” are mistake in judgment, with hindsight; a person should
have done something different. Example: If one industry manufacturing one product
and during special occasion where by customers demand on their product is greater
and as manufacturer does not anticipate an increase sales, the shop will run out of
stock. This is known as an error in judgment. “Violations” are acts which are clearly
contrary to defined operating procedure. Example: A machine operator fails to clean
and lubricate a machine in the prescribed manner. The operator has “violated” a set

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of procedure. Both errors and violations need to occur at the same time as other
failure. For example, see the short case “two million to one”.

 Supplier failure:

Supplier failure is failure in delivery goods and services into an operation. In

operation management of manufacturers, retailers, the organization is highly
dependent on suppliers to achieve business objectives. For example: in order to
produce one television there are thousands of components that manufacturer need
to have, and each components come from difference suppliers, therefore if one
supplier fails in delivering one component, it can paralyze the whole process and
manufactures are not be able to produce the television.

 Customer failure:

However, not all the failures are caused by the operation or its suppliers. Customer
is also a part of a reason that cause operation fail. Customer failure can result from
the misuse of the products and service which the operation has created. Example:
iphone4 is one of the modern and technological phone and especially it can function
on many different applications, some customers might not acknowledge on how the
phone can be used and yet those customers who buy it could overload it and misuse
it in some other way which cause it to fail.

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2. What approaches can be used to improve operation reliability? Where
appropriate illustrate your answer with examples.

Failure is unavoidable. It is only a function of time for most parts of an

operation. However, at different stages during the life of anything, the
probability of failing will be different. There is a curve which describes
failure probability of product, services or process that indicates
relatively high probabilities of failure at the beginning and at the end of
life cycles and this is called the bath-tub curve. The curve comprises of
three distinct stages:

- the infant-mortality or early-life stage

- the normal life stage
- the wear-out stage

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There are 3 main approaches to improve the reliability of operations:
- fail-shafting
- redundancy
- maintenance

Fail-safeing

Operational reliability can be improved by fail-safe or fail-secure, which is a

device or feature which, in the event of failure, responds in a way that will cause no
harm, or at least a minimum of harm, to other devices or danger to personnel. In
Japan, this is called poka-yake which is derived from yakeru (to prevent) and poka
(inadvertent errors).

Fail-safe components of a system are distinguished from fail-secure

components in that, in the former, component failure allows, but does not cause or
invite, a certain improper system behavior. In the latter, component failure does not
allow a certain improper system behavior, although some proper behaviors are
impeded.

Significantly, despite popular belief to the contrary, fail-safe does not mean
that the device or system is designed so that failure is impossible; it simply means
that when failure does occur, it should occur in the safest fashion. For example,
aircraft landing on an aircraft carrier increase the throttle to full power at touchdown.
If the arresting wires fail to capture the plane, it is able to take off again.

More examples include: Luggage carts in airports in which the hand-brake

must be held down at all times. If it is released, the cart the cart will stop.

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Lawnmowers and snow blowers have a hand-closed lever that must be held down at
all time. If it is released, stops the blade’s or rotor’s rotation

Redundancy

Redundancy is the duplication of critical components or having back-up

systems or components of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the
system, usually in the case of a backup or fail-safe.

In many safety- critical systems, such as fly-by-wire and hydraulic systems in

aircraft, some parts of the control system may be triplicate. An error in one
component may then be out-voted by the other two. In a triply redundant system, the
system has three sub components, all three of which must fail before the system
fails. Since each one rarely fails, and the sub components to be extremely small.
Redundancy may also be known by the terms: “majority voting systems” or “Voting
logic”.

There are four major forms of redundancy, which are:

a. Hardware redundancy, such as DMR and TMR.

b. Information redundancy, Such as error detection and correction

methods.

c. Information redundancy, such as Error detection methods

d. Time redundancy, including transient fault detection methods such as

alternate Logic

e. Software redundancy such as N-version programming.

Calculation of the reliability of component “a” with its

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Back-up component “b”:

Maintaining means organizations try to avoid failure by taking care of their

physical facilities. This is one of the important parts especially with physical facilities
which play a central role in creating role in creating their goods and services.
However, if the maintaining job is done badly, maintenance can actually cause more
failure than prevent it.

There are three basic approaches to maintenance:

1. Run to breakdown (RTB).

2. Prevents maintenance (PM).

3. condition-based maintenance (CBM).

 Run to Breakdown (RTB).

Run to breakdown allows the facilities to continue operating until they fail.
Maintenance work is performed and repaired only when there is failure. The
organization will keep some spare parts and the available to make any repairs when
needed. Failure in these circumstances is neither catastrophic nor so frequent as to
make regular checking of the facilities appropriate.

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 Run to breakdown maintenance is a reactive technique. This is sometimes
known as crisis maintenance. Although people wait for the equipment to breakdown
before the maintenance is being done, when this method is studied, it is considered
to be no- maintenance outcome. Although this method is a run to breakdown type of
maintenance, during the lifetime of the equipment, basic preventive maintenance
can still be found.
 Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance attempts to eliminate or reduce the chances of

failure by servicing at planned times. For example, most of the cars on the road are
checked and serviced at regular intervals (e.g at 1,000 km, 10,000 km, 20, 000 km
and so on) to Avoid breakdowns. The regular cleaning and lubricating of machines
or even re- painting works could be considered preventive maintenance.

A long- term benefit of preventive maintenance includes:

1. Improved system reliability.

2. Decreased cost of replacement.

3. Decreased system downtime.

4. Better spares inventory management.

 Condition- based maintenance

Condition – based maintenance to perform maintenance only when the

facilities require it or after one or more indicators show that the equipment is going to
fall or that equipments performance is deteriorating. Ideally, Condition – based
maintenance will allow the maintenance personnel to do only the right things,
minimizing spare parts cost, system downtime and time spent on maintenance. In
other words, condition – based maintenance is designed to repair maintain the right
equipment at the right time.

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 Some of the disadvantages of the condition-based maintenance are that the
initial cost of condition-based maintenance is high, introducing condition – based
maintenance will invoke how maintenance is being performed and the technical side
of it is not always simple. Therefore, because of these drawbacks, condition-based
maintenance is not usually used for less important mainly due to the high cost
despite its obvious advantages.

Reference:

Website references

www.wikipedia.org

http://www.weibull.com/SystemRelWeb/preventive maintenance.htm

http://www.maintenancegeeks/index.php/maintenance - ethods/154maintenance-
programs/119-run-to-failure-management.

http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_uk_he_slack_opsman_4/17/4473/1145139.cw/i
ndex.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/japan_airlines_Filght_123

http://www.asknumbers.com/whatisReliability.aspx

Book Reference

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 Nigel Slack, Stuart Chambers, Robert Jonhston(2007), Operation
management. 5th ed. London: unknown. Pages619-635.

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