MTTR and MTBF: understand the differences between these two indicators of industrial maintenance

MTTR and MTBF are two of the largest performance indicators in organizations in various sectors. It is important to be aware of both their characteristics and ways of monitoring them in order to improve the results of a company. MANAGERS of THE IT area or industry sectors receive many demands in the fulfillment of goals and objectives. The MTTR and MTBF indicators can be implemented to more carefully monitor results, improving the efficiency of business processes. 

What is MTTR? 

Acronym for mean time to repair, can be translated into average time for repair. This metric is able to indicate the average time expected of a repair to be made after a failure or error occurs.  MTTR not only captures the time spent on maintenance, but also the time between notification, diagnosis, assembly, testing performed until a machine is ready to start working again. This indicator can measure the maintainability that a team has. The calculation of the indicator is done with the following formula:  MTTR = (downtime) / (number of stops)  So if a machine is still for 2 hours in one day and 3.5 hours in another, the amount of stops was 2, which brings us the formula:  MTTR = (2 + 3.5) / 2  The result is 165 minutes or 2.75 hours with the equipment out of use. With these parameters, it is possible to find out at which time the maintenance was more time consuming and think of strategies to decrease the time when the machine is inactive. 

What is MTBF? 

MTBF is an acronym for mean time between failures and that translated means means average time between failures. Thus, the calculation to be made with this metric is the average time between an irregularity or failure and the next crisis. To find out the value of the MTBF, the total time the machine operates is subtracted from the time that is lost due to some unforeseen (downtime). With the result of the subtraction, it is divided by the number of failures that occurred in the period. MTBF = [(total operating time – lost time) / (total number of failures)]  For an easier-to-understand example, let's say a machine was active for a period of 136 hours. There were two stops: the first, 1 hour and the second, 5.5 hours. Presenting the following calculation:  MTBF = [(136 – (1 + 5.5) / 2)]  MTBF = 129.5 / 2 = 64.75 hours or 3885 minutes. With this calculation, there is an estimated 64.7 hours of operation between a maintenance and the next maintenance. 

What is the difference between MTTR and MTBF? 

MTTR and MTBF are two indicators capable of managing an enterprise's assets, such as equipment, system operation, tool usage, and installation capability; however, both have different focuses on each other. These metrics have been used for many years by the industry and are able to fulfill their role very efficiently. With these indicators, it is possible to have important data to make decisions and help organizations understand all maintenance processes  MTTR has more focus on repair and measures the efficiency with which the maintenance team is able to act. The faster the time to repair a fault, the shorter the downtime and, consequently, the less the damage caused by the interruption. The MTBF, on the other, has the objective of measuring the performance and reliability of a used equipment. The longer the time between failures, the better for production performance, whatever it is. In this case, the interesting thing is to have as much time as possible between one stop and another. 

Benefits of indicators 

Having performance indicators like MTTR and MTBF is to ensure monitoring control more accurately and create the ability to pay more attention to what needs more care. If the company obtains an increase in MTBF after maintenance, the indicator is that there has been an improvement in the quality of the processes, with a final product of greater credibility before consumers. A good result in MTBF shows that the company's methods are well executed. Just as the opposite is also valid and requires further improvements. The MTTR, in turn, needs to be reduced to the maximum for its result to be considered good. A low MTTR index prevents lost productivity from unavailable equipment or systems and indicates that the company has quick responses to process failures. 

How does MTTR and MTBF monitoring work? 

To work the MTTR and MTBF in the best possible way, some steps need to be deployed.  The fault is identified from reports that allow you to notice occurrences by failure pattern and impact calculated at pause time for both cases.  Second, the decrease in downtime allows you to know which components bring the most problems, so that you can fix the root of the problem. Finally, to develop a preventive maintenance process to reduce the number of maintenance stemming from failures. Understanding the problem is the key to optimizing a company's processes. 

Learn more about MTTR and MTBF with SANMobile 

Reduce maintenance time in your company's processes with automated maintenance process management that ensures greater productivity effectiveness and helps reduce costs. Learn about the MTTR and MTBF solutions offered by SANMobile, a reliable tool to ensure the reduction of setbacks caused by failures.  Contact one of our experts and learn about everything SANMobile can offer you.