Reliability evaluation of process models

The integration definition (IDEF) methodology has been extensively used for modeling of various processes. Reliability analysis of IDEF3 models is of interest to practitioners and researchers for several reasons. It identifies critical activities in the process, improves the process performance, and decreases downtime and operating cost of the process. This paper extends the system reliability evaluation techniques, i.e., the system reduction approach and minimum path and cut sets method for reliability evaluation of IDEF3 models. Representation of IDEF3 models as reliability graphs, generation of the minimal path and cut sets of IDEF3 models with a path tree algorithm, and reliability analysis of IDEF3 models are the issues discussed in this paper. An algorithm for computing reliability of an IDEF3 model from a path set-activity incidence matrix is also presented.