Mission Reliability Modeling of Multistation Manufacturing Systems Considering Cascading Functional Failure

The core function of the manufacturing system is to output high-quality products at a stable production rhythm. However, there are complex interactions between physical and functional failures of machines in the station. Functional failures can be propagated to other stations through material flow, resulting in the increasing risk of system performance degradation, which deserves further study. Therefore, in this article, a mission reliability modeling method considering the cascading functional failure of multistation manufacturing systems is presented. First, from the perspective of functional output, the cascading failure mechanism of a manufacturing system is discussed, and the connotation of functional failure and mission reliability is proposed. Second, the interaction model between machine performance and product quality is established to analyze the production rhythm considering the imperfect inspection. Third, the cascading functional failure model is constructed based on the mechanism of failure propagation. The integrated mission reliability modeling method of a multistation manufacturing system is proposed. Finally, a case study of a ferrite phase-shifting unit manufacturing system is conducted to illustrate the effectiveness and advancement of the proposed method.