Capacitated inspection scheduling of multi-unit systems. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sisikoglu Sir, Esra; Pariazar, Mahmood; Sir, Mustafa Y.
• Is Part Of: Computers & industrial engineering. Volume 120(2018)
• Page Start: 471
• Page End: 479
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: Scheduling -- Inspection and maintenance -- Approximate dynamic programming -- Multi-unit systems; Engineering -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Industrial engineering -- Periodicals; 620.00285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2018.04.022
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0360-8352

Abstract

Highlights: Capacitated inspection scheduling problem of multi-unit systems is studied. Inspections of individual units are coupled via a capacity limit in a given period. Optimal single-unit schedules are used to construct an approximate DP algorithm. The proposed method significantly decreases costs compared to periodic inspection. Abstract: We consider the inspection scheduling problem of multi-unit systems where the inspections of individual units are coupled via a capacity constraint. Although the optimal inspection policy of the majority of single-unit systems can be characterized by a threshold policy, finding an optimal policy for multi-unit systems is significantly harder. Therefore, the current state-of-the-practice uses a periodical inspection policy for all units. Instead, we propose using a dynamic programming (DP) approach to solve small-scale problem instances to optimality and use solutions optimized for a single-unit system in an approximation scheme to obtain near-optimal solutions for large-scale problems. Our results show that taking individual properties of the units to be inspected into account and incorporating the single-unit solutions within an approximate DP framework significantly decrease the inspection cost compared to a periodical inspection policy. The proposed methods can help resource-constrained regulatory agencies such as US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to optimize their inspection activities.