Plenary Lecture:

Risk and Reliability Analysis of Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Associate Professor Calin I. Ciufudean
“Stefan Cel Mare” Universtity of Suceava
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Department of Automatics and Computers
9, University str., RO720225, Suceava
ROMANIA

Abstract: Thinking to risk and reliability analysis of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) from a probabilistic perspective, leads to the conclusion that probability is a measure of expressing uncertainty about the process seen through the point of view of the assessor (i.e. the controller of the process), and based on some background information and knowledge that we have at the time we quantify our uncertainty.
A distinction between objective, real risk, and perceived risk cannot be made. Risk is primarily a judgment, not a fact. As risk expresses uncertainty about the process outcomes, risk perception has a role to play to guide the decision of the controller. A number of different types of models are used in risk analysis. These include both quantity-oriented models and event oriented models. It is difficult to give a detailed specification of what a satisfactory model is. How accurate must a model be in order to be considered satisfactory? One may say that a necessary requirement for a risk model is that any improvement in the model to make it more accurate, as judged by the controller, should not lead to a change in the conclusions considered. Also, when analyzing FMS’s performance, human and organizational factors need to be taken into account. For instance, the conventional reliability analysis is based on the premise that increasing the reliability of a system will decrease the losses from failures; but an inappropriate increase of the reliability of the system may determine the risk of a simultaneous increase of the losses from the failure.
In order to avoid these situations, an efficient discrete-event simulation model has been proposed for reducing the risk of the reliability analysis based on the losses from failure for FMS. The proposed model have been successfully applied and tested for the reliability value analysis of FMS in railway transportation.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:

•  Honour Member of the Romanian Society of Electrical & Control Engineering - Member of the Romanian Technical Experts Corp.

• Technical Expert of the Romanian Ministry of Justice.

• President of the Romanian Society of Electrical & Control Engineering, Suceava Branch.

• Academic Positions: Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Automatics and Computers, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, “Stefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Romania.

• Fields of Scientific Activities: Discrete Event Systems, Complex Measurement Systems, Reliability and Diagnosis of Control Systems, Environmental Management.

• He published 6 books and over 120 scientific papers in conference proceedings and journals.