This book explores the domain of reliability engineering in the context
of machine tools. Failures of machine tools not only jeopardize users'
ability to meet their due date commitments but also lead to poor quality
of products, slower production, down time losses etc.
Poor reliability and improper maintenance of a machine tool greatly
increases the life cycle cost to the user. Thus, the application area of
the present book, i.e. machine tools, will be equally appealing to
machine tool designers, production engineers and maintenance managers.
The book will serve as a consolidated volume on various dimensions of
machine tool reliability and its implications from manufacturers and
users point of view.
From the manufacturers' point of view, it discusses various approaches
for reliability and maintenance based design of machine tools. In
specific, it discusses simultaneous selection of optimal reliability
configuration and maintenance schedules, maintenance optimization under
various maintenance scenarios and cost based FMEA.
From the users' point of view, it explores the role of machine tool
reliability in shop floor level decision- making. In specific, it shows
how to model the interactions of machine tool reliability with
production scheduling, maintenance scheduling and process quality
control.
