Piecewise deterministic Markov process model for flexible manufacturing systems with preventive maintenance

In this paper, we consider a maintenance and production model of a flexible manufacturing system. The maintenance activity involves lubrication, routine adjustments, etc., which reduce the machine failure rates and therefore reduce the aging of the machines. The objective of the problem is to choose the rate of maintenance and the rate of production that minimize the overall costs of inventory/shortage, production, and maintenance. It is shown that the value function is locally Lipschitz. Then, the existence of the optimal control policy is shown, and necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality are obtained.This research has been supported by NSERC-Canada, Grant OGP-003644 and FCAR-NC0271F.