A delay-time-based maintenance model of a multi-component system

There is a well established literature on delay-time modelsof regular inspection policies where inspections may or maynotbe perfect, and where the initial point u of a defect arisesas a homogeneous Poisson process. This paper extends the modellingin two ways. The first is to include the observed practice wherethe multi-component system is inspected not only on a plannedbasis, but also when a component fails. The second extensionis to use a nonhomogeneous Poisson process to describe defectarrivals in the system. An inspection–replacement modelbased upon these two extensions is then developed for a multi-componentsystem. The total expected cost per unit time is minimized withrespect to theinspection intervals and the system replacementtime. The likelihood function of the time of failures and thenumber of defects found at inspections is established, in orderto estimate model parameters based upon routinely collectedmaintenance data. As a special case of the general model, aninspection model—based upon a homogeneous Poisson processof defects arising—is also proposed, which has a relativelysimple structure. Both simulated and real-life data of failuresand defects identified at inspections are used to test the modelsand parameter-estimating procedure.     

Optimal inspection and replacement policies for multi-state deteriorating systems

In this paper, a phase-type approach is proposed to derive optimal inspection and replacement policies for semi-Markovian deteriorating systems. In this approach, the general sojourn time distributions of a semi-Markovian maintenance model are approximated by acyclic phase-type distributions. Using the approximation, a semi-Markovian maintenance model can be transformed into a Markovian maintenance model such that the analytical tractability of Markov processes can be preserved. Based on the Markovian model, algorithms are provided to derive the optimal state-dependent and state-age-dependent inspection and replacement policies such that the expected long-run cost rate is minimized. Furthermore, procedures are developed to implement the optimal policies on semi-Markovian deteriorating systems. The implementation of the optimal policies are illustrated by numerical examples.     

Optimal Repair Limit Replacement Policies with Imperfect Repair

This paper considers the repair limit replacement policies with imperfect repair. The repair is imperfect in the sense that the mean life of a repaired system is less than the mean life of a new system. Furthermore, we examine the repair limit replacement policy for the case in which there are two types of repair-local and central repair. The local repair is imperfect whilst the central repair is perfect (i.e. the system is as good as new after central repair). The optimal policies are derived to minimize the expected cost per unit of time for an infinite time span. Analytical results are presented along with numerical examples.     

Minimum Cost Maintenance in Heavy Haul Rail Track

This paper describes two complementary studies concerning the maintenance and replacement of heavy haul railway track. Minimum cost policies are derived using decision networks in one case and a group replacement model in the other. The results indicate relatively large cost savings on current practice.     

Optimal periodic replacement policy for repairable products under free-repair warranty

This paper investigates the effects of a free-repair warranty on the periodic replacement policy for a repairable product. Cost models are developed for both a warranted and a non-warranted product, and the corresponding optimal periodic replacement policies are derived such that the long-run expected cost rate is minimized. For a product with an increasing failure rate function, structural properties of these optimal policies are obtained. By comparing these optimal policies, we show that the optimal replacement period for a warranted product should be adjusted toward the end of the warranty period. Finally, examples are given to numerically illustrate the impact of a product warranty on the optimal periodic replacement policy.     

On economically based quality control decisions

A new approach to the problem of quality control is investigated. It is based on the theories and models developed for optimal maintenance policies for equipment subject to stochastic failure. Four alternative sampling/inspection procedures are examined. They are easy to implement, do not require the process operator to compute his own operating decisions, and are capable of finding optimal intervals between successive samplings/inspections. Both fixed and variable costs are included in the models. Relatively efficient algorithms have been developed for finding the optimal quality control procedures; this is due, partially, to the simple form of the objective function.     

Optimal inspection of a complex system subject to periodic and opportunistic inspections and preventive replacements

This paper proposes two optimization models for the periodic inspection of a system with “hard-type” and “soft-type” components. Given that the failures of hard-type components are self-announcing, the component is instantly repaired or replaced, but the failures of soft-type components can only be detected at inspections. A system can operate with a soft failure, but its performance may be reduced. Although a system may be periodically inspected, a hard failure creates an opportunity for additional inspection (opportunistic inspection) of all soft-type components. Two optimization models are discussed in the paper. In the first, soft-type components undergo both periodic and opportunistic inspections to detect possible failures. In the second, hard-type components undergo periodic inspections and are preventively replaced depending on their condition at inspection. Soft-type and hard-type components are either minimally repaired or replaced when they fail. Minimal repair or replacement depends on the state of a component at failure; this, in turn, depends on its age. The paper formulates objective functions for the two models and derives recursive equations for their required expected values. It develops a simulation algorithm to calculate these expected values for a complex model. Several examples are used to illustrate the models and the calculations. The data used in the examples are adapted from a real case study of a hospital’s maintenance data for a general infusion pump.     

Basic optimality results for Bayesian group replacement policies

The optimal structure of Bayesian group replacement policies for a parallel system of n items with exponential failure times and random failure parameter is presented. The paper contains a proof of the fact that it is optimal to observe the system only at failure times. For the case of two items operating in parallel the exact form of the policy is derived.     

Migration Policies, Selection Pressure, and Parallel Evolutionary Algorithms

This paper investigates how the policy used to select migrants and the individuals they replace affects the selection pressure in parallel evolutionary algorithms (EAs) with multiple populations. The four possible combinations of random and fitness-based emigration and replacement of existing individuals are considered. The investigation follows two approaches. The first is to calculate the takeover time under the four migration policies. This approach makes several simplifying assumptions, but the qualitative conclusions that are derived from the calculations are confirmed by the second approach. The second approach consists on quantifying the increase in the selection intensity. The selection intensity is a domain-independent adimensional quantity that can be used to compare the selection pressure of common selection methods with the pressure caused by migration. The results may help to avoid excessively high (or low) selection pressures that may cause the search to fail, and offer a plausible explanation to the frequent claims of superlinear speedups in parallel EAs.     

Replacement Policies under Minimal Repair

In many situations where system failures occur the concept of ‘minimal repair’ is important. A minimal repair occurs when the failed system is not treated so as to return it to ‘as new’ condition but is instead returned to the average condition for a working system of its age. Examples include complex systems where the repair or replacement of one component does not materially affect the condition of the whole system.For a system with decreasing reliability it will become increasingly expensive to maintain operation by minimal repairs, and the question then arises as to when the entire system should be replaced. We consider cases where the failure distribution can be modelled by the Weibull distribution. Two policies have been suggested for this case. One is to replace at a fixed time and the other is to replace at a fixed number of failures. We consider a third policy, to replace at the next failure after a fixed time, and show that it is optimal.Expressions to decide the replacement point and the cost of this policy are derived. Unfortunately these do not give rise to explicit representations, and so they are used to provide extensive numerical comparisons of the policies in a search for effective explicit approximations. Conclusions are drawn from these comparisons regarding the relative effectiveness of the policies and approximations.     

Optimal Continuous Policies for Repair and Replacement

This paper investigates the problem of finding optimal replacement policies for equipment subject to failures with randomly distributed repair costs, the degree of reliability of the equipment being considered as a state of a Markov process. Algorithms have been devised to find optimal combined policies both for preventive replacement and for replacement in case of failure by using repair-limit strategies.First a simple procedure to obtain an optimal discrete policy is described. Then an algorithm is formulated in order to calculate an optimal continuous policy: it is shown how the optimal repair limit is the solution to an ordinary differential equation, and how the value of the repair limit determines the optimal preventive replacement policy.     

Obtaining the optimal cache document replacement policy for the caching system of an EC website

Adopting a proper cache document replacement policy is critical to the performance of a caching system. Among the existing cache document replacement policies, no one policy can surpass all the other policies in every case. Besides, the most suitable cache document replacement policy for a caching system is often chosen from the existing policies, which cannot guarantee the optimality of the chosen policy. These phenomena motivate us to construct a cache document replacement policy which content can be tailored to the specific requirements of a caching system. In this study, the optimal linear combination (OLC) cache document replacement policy tailored to the requirements of the caching system is to be found out. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, an experimental EC website has been constructed, and the log file of the website server was used as the data source to evaluate the performances of various cache document replacement policies under different cache sizes. In our simulation experiments, the OLC policies outperformed the other traditional policies by increasing the hit rate and the byte hit rate up to 7% and 11%, respectively.     

Construction of Matrices with Prescribed Singular Values and Eigenvalues

Two issues concerning the construction of square matrices with prescribe singular values an eigenvalues are addressed. First, a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an n × n complex matrix with n given nonnegative numbers as singular values an m ( n) given complex numbers to be m of the eigenvalues is determined. This extends the classical result of Weyl and Horn treating the case when m = n. Second, an algorithm is given to generate a triangular matrix with prescribe singular values an eigenvalues. Unlike earlier algorithms, the eigenvalues can be arranged in any prescribe order on the diagonal. A slight modification of this algorithm allows one to construct a real matrix with specified real an complex conjugate eigenvalues an specified singular values. The construction is done by multiplication by diagonal unitary matrices, permutation matrices and rotation matrices. It is numerically stable and may be useful in developing test software for numerical linear algebra packages.     

Some results on comparison of maintenance policies

1. IntroductionMaintenance policies are followed to reduce the incidence of system failure or to returna failed system to the operating state. FOr example, if a component fails, one strategy isto replace it. Another strategy is not to wait for it to fail, but to replace it at some earIiertime, which belongs to maintenance poIicies problems. The most usefuI replacemeflt policiesare the age replacemeni policy and the block replacement policy. See [l,2] for a discussionof these policies. Compa…     

Periodical replacement problem without assuming minimal repair

In this paper, a periodical replacement problem with a general repair is considered where a system is replaced at only scheduled times kT (k = 0,1,…) and is repaired whenever it fails. By general repair, we mean that repair brings the state of the system to a certain better state. A stochastic model to describe the operation in time of a repairable system which is maintained by a general repair is developed. The model contains the minimal repair case in which repair restores a system to its functioning condition just prior to failure. The sensitivity of replacement policies under a general repair to derivation from the minimal repair assumption is numerically examined. It will be seen that the policies are insensitive when the deterioration of the system is not fast and the replacement cost is high relative to the repair cost. The minimal repair assumption is then justified for such situations.     

Mean and variance optimization of non–linear systems and worst–case analysis

In this paper, we consider expected value, variance and worst–case optimization of nonlinear models. We present algorithms for computing optimal expected value, and variance policies, based on iterative Taylor expansions. We establish convergence and consider the relative merits of policies based on expected value optimization and worst–case robustness. The latter is a minimax strategy and ensures optimal cover in view of the worst–case scenario(s) while the former is optimal expected performance in a stochastic setting. Both approaches are used with a small macroeconomic model to illustrate relative performance, robustness and trade-offs between the alternative policies.     

Mathematical Analysis of Preventive Maintenance Schemes

A new approach is proposed for the maximization of profit by optimal scheduling of machinery. Only one objective function (profit) is used instead of two (availability and cost). The latter approach inevitably resulted in suboptimization. In addition, the "single objective function" approach naturally lends itself to comparisons of efficiency between any preventive maintenance policies. Optimal solutions were found in order to compare the efficiency of the commonly used policies of age and block replacement. Numerical results show that age replacement is always more profitable. Optimal solutions for these two maintenance policies were also found in the specific case where a maintenance repair is superior in quality to a breakdown repair. Finally, the physical law of increasing entropy, applied to the failure rate concept, leads to the conclusion that preventive maintenance should always be considered.     

Hybrid block replacement and inspection policies for a multi-component system with heterogeneous component lives

Novel replacement policies that are hybrids of inspection maintenance and block replacement are developed for an n identical component series system in which the component parts used at successive replacements arise from a heterogeneous population. The heterogeneous nature of components implies a mixed distribution for time to failure. In these circumstances, a hybrid policy comprising two phases, an early inspection phase and a later wear-out replacement phase, may be appropriate. The policy has some similarity to burn-in maintenance. The simplest policy described is such a hybrid and comprises a block-type or periodic replacement policy with an embedded block or periodic inspection policy. We use a three state failure model, in which a component may be good, defective or failed, in order to consider inspection maintenance. Hybrid block replacement and age-based inspection, and opportunistic hybrid policies will also arise naturally in these circumstances and these are briefly investigated. For the simplest policy, an approximation is used to determine the long-run cost and the system reliability. The policies have the interesting property that the system reliability may be a maximum when the long-run cost is close to its minimum. The failure model implies that the effect of maintenance is heterogeneous. The policies themselves imply that maintenance is carried out more prudently to newer than to older systems. The maintenance of traction motor bearings on underground trains is used to illustrate the ideas in the paper.     

自动化车床最优刀具检测模型研究

针对自动化车床工序最优检测和刀具更换问题进行了探讨.将定期检测和将刀具更换作用于同一工序流程,在只考虑刀具故障条件下,通过概率论和更新过程理论建立了以单位时间内期望费用为目标函数的数学模型,以检测间隔和刀具更换间隔为策略,确定最优的策略使得目标函数达到最小,并求出了经长期运行单位时间内期望费用的明显表达式.最后还对结果进行了讨论.     

Impact of measurement error on container inspection policies at port-of-entry

Containers arriving at a port-of-entry are inspected using sensors and devices to detect drugs, weapons, nuclear materials and other illegal cargo. Measurement errors associated with the inspection process may result in higher misclassification of containers. In this paper, we propose and formulate three inspection policies for containers at port-of-entry assuming the presence of sensor measurement errors. The optimization of the policies is carried out and the performance of each in terms of misclassification probabilities is compared. In each of the policies, the optimum settings are determined by minimizing the probability of false rejection while limiting the probability of false acceptance to a specified tolerance level. The results show that repeat inspections improve performance in terms of correct container classification. Expressions are presented for container misclassification in a single station, as well as in systems with several inspection stations arranged in different configurations such as series, parallel, series-parallel and parallel-series.