Faulty device replacement for industrial networks

In the case of failing equipment in industrial plants, the replacement time and effort must be kept at a minimum to increase the overall system availability. A well-designed Faulty Device Replacement (FDR) concept is therefore a central issue to the effective operation of industrial plants. Network enabled devices supporting FDR with minimum subsequent manual device configuration after replacement form a key requirement to improve repairability. To achieve this, several FDR techniques have been proposed and implemented by different vendors and organizations. In this work, a performance model for the time to repair and a taxonomy for existing FDR methods is provided. This can be used as a basis for comparative performance measurements to derive the most suitable method during the planning phase of an industrial network.