A process industry manufacturer will soon begin a three-month pilot production run to test a new anticoagulant solution that is designed to prevent unwanted lumps in product output. The test run will be very expensive, and great care is being taken to prevent any problems that might arise. The importance of the pilot run dictates a high degree of process monitoring, and a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system will carry out much of that task. A flow-rate sensor that is part of the monitoring system has an average failure rate of 1 failure every two years (24 months).
a. What is the estimated reliability of the sensor at the end of the three-month run? Given the importance of the test, is the sensor reliability high enough at the end-of-run point? describe your response.
b. Suppose two of the sensors, arranged in a parallel configuration, are used. What is the estimated reliability at the end of the run?
c. If three of the sensors, arranged in parallel, are used, what is the reliability estimate at the end of the run?
d. If the manufacturer desires even higher reliability, what steps (other than even more redundancy) might be taken? describe.