What is MTTR Formula, Calculation Significance

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), also known as Mean Time to Recovery, is a key metric that measures the average time needed to troubleshoot and repair a failed system or equipment, from the moment of failure to full functionality. MTTR provides insight into the efficiency of maintenance processes and the responsiveness of repair teams.

What is an Equipment Failure?

Whenever a machine is running in any organization or industry then there may be a failure and that can happen in varying degrees. Some failures might be partial and some are total failures. Here, failure means the machine stops working and is not capable of producing the goods or the quality of products is not good enough.

What do MTTR calculations include?

Following times to be considered while doing the calculation of MTTR:

• Time to notify the technicians
• Diagnose the issues that having with the machine
• Fixing the issues
• Reassemble aligned the machine
• Taking trial and startup for the production

Why there is a need to track MTTR?

MTTR generally gives an idea of how an asset is performing. So to effectively manage the losses, MTTR should be monitored. Understanding MTTR is a very important tool for any organization because it tells how well you are responding to the issues with your assets. Many organizations work to reduce the MTTR by having an in-house maintenance team and that is having the necessary resources like tools, spare parts, and service engineers, etc.

How to Calculate MTTR?

MTTR is generally calculated as the main time you have spent on the repairs and divided by the number of repairs you have performed. Mathematically, it can be written as:

MTTR = Total Maintenance Time/ Total number of repairs

we will understand it by an example:

Suppose there is a centrifugal pump, that is used to deliver the water in a process. This centrifugal pump goes breakdown and it took 60 minutes to get it repaired.

After that, It got breakdown again after 2 or 3 days then it took 20 minutes to get it repaired. Then there is again the failure of the pump and this time it took 30 minutes to get it repaired.

So, in this case, the MTTR is,

MTTR = (60+20+10)/3

MTTR = 90/3

MTTR = 30

hence the average time for repairing the pump is 30 minutes.

*You can calculate the MTTR for a particular asset or equipment or combined MTTR for all assets

What is the significance of MTTR?

MTTR tells us a lot of things, which are described below:

Training

MTTR can highlight the gap in the skill of the staff member, technician, or individual. Let us understand it by an example. Suppose, there are two teams in the plant. The MTTR of team ‘A’ is 10 minutes and for Team ‘B’ it is 20 minutes. The job given to them was the same. So, team B is required training on how to resolve the breakdowns at minimum time. Hence, MTTR helps us to identify the gaps of a particular group or team or an individual so that MTTR can be reduced by enhancing the skills of an individual.

Repair or Replace

MTTR is very useful in finding out whether the equipment is to repair or should be replaced. When you take notice that more and more time is required to repair and the cost keeps on increasing to repair the equipment, then it’s better to replace that particular equipment with the new one.

How to Reduce the MTTR?

MTTR can be reduced in the following different ways and every efficient maintenance system needs to look at it.

Optimize spare part inventory

If the maintenance team or the staff members make sure that, technicians have quick access to the spares and tools whenever need them, it will help to reduce the MTTR considerably.

Streamline the repair process

To reduce MTTR, one has to streamline the repair process by creating standard operating procedures (SOP) and a maintenance checklist that is performed on regular basis. If there are any changes that need to be done, they should be changed immediately.

Giving Training

If a technician needs to job done properly and in the shortest time then the technician should be qualified enough to do the repair of the machine. If there is any skill gap, then training must be arranged so that MTTR can be reduced by enhancing knowledge.

Using condition monitoring sensors

Condition monitoring sensors are used to track the machine’s health and performance. These sensors should be utilized to prevent unexpected failure and track the deterioration of parts so that the spares can be arranged on short notice.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any doubts or questions, kindly comment down below.

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