Production trees: A new modeling methodology for production availability analyses

In this article, we propose a new modeling methodology for production availability analyses. These analyses are typically carried out by means of flow network models and Monte-Carlo simulations. The design of flow network models is often delicate because the production of a unit may depend on the states of other units located downstream and upstream in the production line. We show here how to handle this problem by means of operators working on three flows: a capacity flow moving forward from source to target units, a demand flow moving backward from target units to source units, and finally a production flow moving forward from source to target units. The production depends on the demand which itself depends on the capacity. Models designed according to this scheme caneventually be seen either as flow networks or as an extension of (Dynamic) Fault Trees to production availability analyses. We present the AltaRica 3.0 library of modeling patterns we designed to represent the different operators. We report results of experiments we performed on models designed using this library. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.