A dynamic opportunistic preventive maintenance policy for multi-unit series systems with intermediate buffers. (2nd September 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhou, Xiaojun; Lu, Zhiqiang; Xi, Lifeng
• Is Part Of: International journal of industrial and systems engineering. Volume 6:Number 3(2010)
• Page Start: 276
• Page End: 288
• Publication Date: 2010-09-02
• Subjects: preventive maintenance -- opportunistic maintenance -- dynamic programming -- multi-unit series systems -- intermediate buffers -- system-dependent costs -- downtime costs -- online information -- reliability thresholds -- short-term cost savings -- penalty costs -- work in process -- optimisation -- maintenance policy; Systems engineering -- Periodicals; Industrial engineering -- Periodicals; 620.001171
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1748-5037

Abstract

Commonly, for a multi-unit series system, whenever one of the units stops to perform a preventive maintenance action, preventive maintenance opportunities arise for the other units because combining the preventive maintenance activities can save the system-dependent cost (i.e. downtime cost). This article proposes an opportunistic preventive maintenance policy for multi-unit series systems based on dynamic programming, with integrating the online information of the intermediate buffers. Whenever one of the units reaches its reliability threshold, a preventive maintenance action has to be performed on that unit. An optimal preventive maintenance practice is determined by maximising the short-term cumulative opportunistic maintenance cost savings for the whole system which is a combination of the maintenance cost saving, the downtime cost saving, the penalty cost for advancing the preventive maintenance action and the penalty cost for work in process. Finally, a numerical example is given throughout to show how this approach works.