Track 2 Session 7

10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Investigation of Weibull Behavior of a Simulated Engine Fleet

Rolls-Royce's business model is evolving from a manufacturing focus to a services focus. Long-term service agreements transfer the financial risk of unreliability from the customer to Rolls-Royce. Fleet 50th percentile (B50) time to first shop visit is an important fleet statistic for financial planning and fleet logistics. Conventional fleet statistics, such as MTBF, are not efficient predictors of inherent product reliability, especially in the case of an emerging fleet where dilution by new product overwhelms any early failures. Weibull statistics have been traditionally employed by Rolls-Royce to model mature fleet behavior. This presentation outlines an investigation of the best method of estimating Weibull parameters of a simulated emerging engine fleet created using Monte Carlo simulation.

Key Words: Weibull, Weibull-Bayesian, Monte Carlo Simulation

Douglas C. Kemp

Rolls-Royce

Indianapolis, Indiana