Title: Modelling and simulation of functional product system availability and support costs

Authors: Magnus Löfstrand; Sean Reed; Magnus Karlberg; John Andrews; Lennart Karlsson; Sarah Dunnett

Addresses: Division of Computer Aided Design, E218K, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden. ' Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre NTEC, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD UK. ' Division of Computer Aided Design, E218K, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden. ' Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre NTEC, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD UK. ' Division of Computer Aided Design, E218K, Luleå University of Technology, SE-971 87 Luleå, Sweden. ' Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract: Functional Products (FP), total offers or product service systems that comprise of both Hardware (HW) and Support Services (SS) sold as an integrated offering under an availability guarantee are becoming increasing popular in industry. This paper addresses, through modelling and simulation the challenge faced by suppliers in developing an integrated HW and SS design to produce an FP which meets contracted availability. A recently published framework specified how an integrated model hardware and service support system model could be used to obtain functional availability predictions and perform simulation driven functional product development. This paper presents the first example of an integrated functional product model. It uses fault tree, Petri net and discrete event simulation techniques to enable the prediction of functional product availability and support costs. Such predictions are used here to evaluate and compare different service support system designs.

Keywords: functional products; product development; product service systems; service support systems; discrete event simulation; fault trees; Petri nets; availability; modelling; support costs; integrated functional product models.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2012.049838

International Journal of Product Development, 2012 Vol.16 No.3/4, pp.304 - 325

Accepted: 29 Jun 2012
Published online: 30 Dec 2014 *

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