Abstract:

This special issue of IJPE on Reliability Research in India focuses on the current reliability research being conducted in Indian industries, research organizations, and academic institutes. All papers submitted for the special issue were reviewed by the experts in the field. Based on the referee comments and theme of the special issue, 10 best papers out of 20 submitted, have been selected and are supposed to reflect the current reliability research trend in India. In addition, this special issue includes a brief overview article, which highlights the important reliability contributions and the milestones achieved in the advancement of reliability engineering education and practice in India.

The first paper, Risk-Informed Method for Safety Re-Assessment of Irradiation Facilities, by Varde, Joshi, Mishra, Bandi, Srivastava and Kohlik, presents a new risk-informed methodology for re-assessment studies of irradiation facilities used in nuclear industry. This paper discusses the salient features of the methodology through a case study performed on a 30-year-old irradiation facility, ISOMED, operating in BARC - Mumbai.

The second paper, jointly from BARC and IIT Mumbai, A New Uncertainty Importance Measure in Fuzzy Reliability Analysis, Durga Rao, Kushwaha, Verma and Srividya, proposes a fuzzy framework to rank the components based on their uncertainty contribution to the over all uncertainty of system reliability. The proposed method is validated with comparative studies on a reliability problem and found that proposed fuzzy uncertainty importance measure is matching with probabilistic uncertainty importance measures.

The third paper from IIT-Roorkee, A Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm for Reliability Optimization Problem, by Amar Kishor, Shiv Prasad Yadav and Surendra Kumar, considers a multi-objective optimization problem under fuzzy environment where the component reliability allocations are performed for maximizing the system reliability while minimizing the cost of the system. The method used in this paper is described using a simplified version of a life-support system in a space capsule.

The fourth paper from DRDO, Vehicular Fleet Reliability Estimation: A Case Study, by Hari Prasad, Singh and Bhat, presents a case study on a large fleet of vehicles. The paper discusses a technique of mission reliability prediction and the weak links identification in the system using field data.? The method is demonstrated using Weibull probability plot.

The fifth paper, Additive Weibull Model for Reliability Analysis, by Usgaonkar and Mariappan, demonstrates that additive Weibull model can be used for describing the bathtub shaped failure rate functions that arise in many practical reliability applications.? The paper discusses the parameter estimation methods based on the graphical estimation techniques. The applicability of proposed model is demonstrated through various case studies.

The sixth paper from Reliability Engineering Centre of IIT Kharagpur, Global Reliability Evaluation using g-Minimal Cutsets, by Rajesh Mishra and Chaturvedi, presents an algorithm for global reliability evaluation of undirected networks using g-minimal Cutsets. Through several examples, it is demonstrated that the proposed g-minimal Cutsets based algorithm produces much smaller number of terms for the global reliability expression as compared to spanning trees based algorithms.

The seventh paper from Centre for Reliability, Chennai, A Parametric Empirical Bayesian Software Reliability Model, by Duraiswamy and Govindasamy, proposes an easy to adopt software reliability model considering the generalized exponential distribution for the time between failures. The model parameters are obtained using Bayesian approach and least squares method. The usefulness of the model has been demonstrated using three sets of actual software failure data.

The eighth paper from Delhi University, A New Insight into Software Reliability Growth Modeling, by Kapur, Anu Aggarwal, Sameer Anand, shows that different unified approaches proposed recently in capturing different software reliability growth curves are, in fact, equivalent. Further, it is shown that the unified approach based on hazard rate function is more general and can handle both Imperfect Debugging and Fault generation scenarios.

The ninth paper, Pareto Distribution – A Software Reliability Growth Model, by Kantam and Subba Rao, proposes a new software reliability growth model based on Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process (NHPP) using Pareto type mean value function. Using a well known test data obtained from Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), it is shown that the proposed model is efficient compared to the existing models.

Lastly, the tenth paper, Markov Model and Simulation Analysis of 110 kV Transmission Lines: A Case Study, by? Michael, Amonkar, Mariappan, and Kamat, present an accurate and practical availability analysis of an existing electrical transmission system used in Goa Electricity Department. Using the integrated use of Markov chains and simulation methodology, the authors recommends an optimal cost-effective resource planning strategy for the Goa Electrical Department.

I would like to thank all the authors for the patience and cooperation exhibited and also I am grateful to referees who gave their valuable time to review the papers promptly. I am grateful to Professor Krishna B. Misra, Editor-in-Chief of IJPE, for inviting me to organize this important special issue. I hope we have been able to present the glimpses of current reliability research being carried out in India. Of course this issue may not represent the entire canvass of on-going research in the country but can be called as a representative effort in that direction. I do hope - this special issue will be received enthusiastically by academia, researchers and engineers involved in reliability engineering.

Amari, Suprasad V., is a Senior Reliability Engineer at Relex Software Corporation. He pursued his M.S. and Ph.D. in Reliability Engineering at the Reliability Engineering Centre of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. He has published over 50 research papers in reputed international journals and conferences. He is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Performability Engineering and International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering and also on a management committee of RAMS. He is a member of the US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the IEC Technical Committee on Dependability Standards (TC 56), advisory board member of several international conferences, and a reviewer for several journals on reliability and safety. He received 2009 Stan Oftshun Award from SRE for the best RAMS paper. He is a senior member of ASQ, IEEE, and IIE; and a member of ACM and SRE. He is also an ASQ-certified Reliability Engineer.