Evaluating availability of functional products through simulation

A functional product is an integrated package consisting of hardware, software and a service support system that provides a customer with a certain function and is sold under a performance-based contract that includes a functional availability guarantee. For the availability performance, prediction, optimisation and management of risk are therefore important concerns during product development. This paper describes a software tool that can generate an integrated model of a functional product from its design details and analyse it through simulation to provide availability performance information. The model's application to the analysis of a real industrial system is demonstrated. Such tools are important for the development and widespread adoption of functional products. The resulting analysis gave an indication of a suitable guaranteed functional availability level for the product and could be used to compare the performance of different design options.