While standard system reliability indices such as the SAIFI, CAIDI, SAIDI and MAIFIe are good overall indicators of reliability performance, additional reliability measurements are often needed. For example, there are an infinite number of scenarios that could result in the same system reliability indices, and overall customer satisfaction regarding service reliability can vary greatly from scenario to scenario. Furthermore, additional service reliability measurements are generally required in order to target opportunities for reliability improvement. The seminar provides a great deal of information regarding various tactics to measure various aspects of service reliability.

2) Are you interpreting outage and reliability data properly?

When using historical service reliability data to target opportunities for reliability improvement, it is necessary to analyze the data using a number of different techniques. In addition, system topology data can often provide insight into potential opportunities for significant reliability improvement. The seminar provides in-depth discussion on techniques used to analyze service reliability and target specific areas for reliability improvement based on the potential benefit per unit cost.

3) Are you collecting enough data on outages?

It is important to collect the right type of information on each outage to properly gauge current reliability performance and problem areas. In some cases, it is difficult to collect data (e.g., momentary outages, etc.). The seminar provides guidelines for direct collection and/or indirect estimation of the outage data required to successfully manage reliability.

4) Are you considering all of the possible reliability improvement strategies?

There are an enormous number of ways in which reliability may be enhanced. Depending on specific circumstances, some methods are more effective than others, and some methods provide more reliability benefit per unit cost than others. It is important to identify and consider all possible methods to enhance or maintain reliability, and then to select the methods that provide the greatest benefit per unit cost. When reliability must be improved, the most cost effective methods should be employed. When costs must be reduced, the impact on reliability must be minimized. By considering alternative strategies to achieve reliability objectives, it may be possible to improve reliability under current budget constraints, reduce costs while maintaining current reliability levels and/or achieve slightly better reliability performance while simultaneously reducing costs. The seminar illustrates many different reliability improvement strategies that may be available, and illustrates how each strategy may or may not be the strategy of choice under various circumstances.

5) Are you accurately predicting the quantitative reliability benefit of potential projects and strategies?

In order to justify a new reliability improvement project or activity, or changes to an existing reliability enhancement initiative, it is necessary to predict the quantitative change in reliability performance that will result. There are many variables that impact reliability, and accurate reliability predictions are often complex undertakings. The seminar discusses in detail the data and methods that are required to make accurate reliability predictions, and the pros and cons of using deterministic vs. probabilistic reliability prediction methods.