Performance and Availability Analysis of Feeding System in a Sugar Mill using Stochastic Modelling

This paper discusses the performance evaluation and availability analysis of feeding system of a sugar plant. The sugar industry is a complex and repairable engineering system comprises of various units viz. feeding, crushing, evaporation, refining and crystallization etc. One of the most important functionaries of a sugar industry is feeding system. This system consists of four subsystems arranged in series configuration. For the evaluation of performance and analysis stochastic modelling is used consider various types of minor /major faults and there removal by repair/replacement. A real data related to various failures is collected from Ch. Devilal Co-Operative Sugar Mills Limited, Ahulana, Gohana. A performance evaluating model to find MTSF, Reliability, Availability, Busy Period etc. has been developed with the help of mathematical formulation based on Semi-Markov process and Regenerative Point Technique. The findings of this paper are therefore, considered to be useful for the analysis of availability and determination of best possible maintenance strategies in a sugar industry concerned.