A certain manufacturing process requires a continuous supply of water. The water comes from a tank and is maintained at a constant level with a pump. Should the pump stop, an alarm sounds, and the tank has enough water to last 2.5 hours. Id the tank runs dry the process must be stopped, and the costis $8,000 per hour. Suppose the most common failure mode of the pump is a seized bearing. A bearing has a MTBF of 3 years and requires 4 hours to replace. It is possible to anticipate when a bearing is about to fail by checking the sound of the pump once a week. Such a bearing can be replaced during a shift when the process is not running. It takes 20 minutes for a $30/hour inspector to perform the sound check. The process runs 50 weeks a year.
Is it cost effective to performt he weekly sound check? Explain
Suppose a standby pump with the annual capital and operating cost of $800 is to be installed, is this a good idea? Explain