A product or system will often have a potential for some dependability issues during its service life, sometimes these issues remain hidden for months or years into its operation. Synoptix can evaluate a systems potential for unreliability or unavailability at any point in its lifecycle. This analysis gives crucial estimates and probabilities as to when and how often the product or system will experience unreliability issues. By calculating the probabilities of system failure – generally achieved through a mathematical based reliability model (Fault Tree Analysis) – Synoptix can advise our customers as to how they may achieve better reliability, through reconfiguration of the system, or by suggesting potential ‘weak links’ in the current equipment/component structure.

Reliability engineering has strong links to safety, usually the inputs for a reliability model stem from those founded in safety analysis. Synoptix will construct reliability models to analyse specific types of failure for the system under review, this isolation will allow Synoptix to produce informative and targeted results which concentrate on high priority (serious) failures first. Our extensive capabilities within Safety engineering allow for a well evidenced argument established upon the priority of potential failures and the sequence of events which can lead to them, this information is often obtained from a FMECAs (Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis) and Hazard Analyses.

Synoptix can also provide post-processing to the reliability model, whether it was completed by us or externally. Armed with the knowledge of how often and to what extent a system can fail (possibility for multiple types of failure), we can build a life-cycle model to analyse the financial implications of the potential unreliability/unavailability during the in-service life of the product. The Synoptix life-cycle model will endeavour to capture and estimate the potential costs involved in the not only the continued operation of the system (Fuel, scheduled maintenance and technology upgrades etc.), but all expenditure associated with the unreliability issues under consideration such as: system downtime (negative financial implications), maintenance personnel, equipment removal (where necessary), cost of spares (including: ILS costs; storage, transportation and maintenance) and the potential financial degradation of the system as spares becomes harder to procure and further unscheduled maintenance issues arise.