Reference:
K. Verbert,
B. De Schutter, and
R. Babuska,
"Timely condition-based maintenance planning for multi-component
systems," Reliability Engineering & System Safety, vol.
159, pp. 310-321, Mar. 2017.
Abstract:
Last-minute maintenance planning is often undesirable, as it may cause
downtime during operational hours, may require rescheduling of other
activities, and does not allow to optimize the management of spare
parts, material, and personnel. In spite of the aforementioned
drawbacks of last-minute planning, most existing methods plan
maintenance activities at the last minute. In this paper, we propose a
new strategy for timely maintenance planning in multi-component
systems. As a first step, we determine for each system component
independently the most appropriate maintenance planning strategy. This
way, the maintenance decisions can be tailored to the specific
situations. For example, conservative maintenance decisions can be
taken when the risk tolerance is low, and maintenance decisions can be
made timely when we can accurately predict future degradation
behavior. In the second step, we optimize the maintenance plan at the
system level. Here, we account for economic and structural dependence
with the aim to profit from spreading or combining various maintenance
activities. The applicability of the method is demonstrated on a
railway case. It is shown how the different cost functions (e.g. costs
of maintenance, downtime, and failure) influence the maintenance
decisions.