Difference Between MTTR and MTBF
Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) are two important reliability measures that maintenance and engineering employ to measure system performance and downtime.
MTTR is the average amount of time it takes to figure out what’s wrong with a broken system or part, fix it, and get it back to full working order. It starts when the failure happens and concludes when the system is working again. MTTR is a way to quantify maintainability, or how quickly a team can find and fix problems. A lower MTTR means that things will get back to normal faster and there will be less downtime.
The MTTR is the average of all the times it takes to fix and restart a pump that breaks down and takes 2 hours to fix and restart.
MTBF, on the other hand, tells you how long it usually takes for one failure to happen after another. It starts when the system is fixed and running again and goes on until the next failure. MTBF stands for “mean time between failures,” which tells you how long a system will work before it breaks down. The system is more reliable if the MTBF is higher.
For example, if a sensor works without breaking for an average of 1,000 hours before it needs to be fixed, its MTBF is 1,000 hours.
Some important differences are:
- MTTR looks at how long it takes to fix something, while MTBF looks at how long it takes for something to break down.
- MTTR is about when things are down, and MTBF is about when they are up.
- For systems to work well, MTTR should be minimal and MTBF should be high.
Both indicators are important for planning maintenance, making the system better, and lowering the total cost of ownership.