A simulation program to model effects of logistics on R&M of complex systems

A simulation program (SIMULAV) is presented that is capable of modeling large-scale reliability systems. The program can model the effect of such logistics characteristics as inventory, transportation, and facilities on the reliability and availability of the system. The program is written in Pascal and it consists of three main elements: a process-oriented simulation language, a minimal cut-sets algorithm, and a simulation model to estimate the availability of a complex system. The model is implemented using the process-oriented simulation language and its uses the minimal cut-sets to determine system failure. It assumes that the system can be represented by a reliability block diagram. Examples are modeled to show how SIMULAV can be used to assess the effect of some logistic parameters on the availability of the system.<
>