Inspecting a Vital Component Needed upon Emergency. Issue 12 (31st May 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sabouri, Alireza; Shechter, Steven M.; Huh, Woonghee Tim
• Is Part Of: Production and operations management. Volume 24:Issue 12(2015:Dec.)
• Page Start: 1839
• Page End: 1851
• Publication Date: 2015-05-31
• Subjects: inspection policies -- preventive maintenance -- stand‐by system; Production management -- Periodicals; 658.505
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.12386
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1059-1478

Abstract

Abstract : We consider a stochastically failing component that will be needed at a random future time when an emergency occurs. If the component is not operational at that time, the system incurs a large penalty, which we want to avoid through inspections and replacements. We propose a model and solution algorithm for finding an inspection policy that minimizes the infinite horizon discounted expected penalty, replacement, and inspection costs. We also discuss structural properties of the solution, as well as insights based on numerical results.