Accurate modeling of repair time in two-machine production lines

In this paper, the repair process for fault-tolerant industrial production lines is investigated. The type of failure may significantly affect the repair time because of travel time, customs,... A modified Markov model is developed that takes into account these different repair times. The availability of a two-machine production line is then calculated using this model and is compared to the availability obtained from conventional models for the same production line. A case study shows that the results from the two models may vary significantly indicating that a more accurate description of the repair process was indeed necessary.