Research on Preventive Maintenance Strategy

Optimization Based on Reliability Threshold

Jiao Yuting Lv Chuan
State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology System State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology System
School of Reliability and Systems Engineering School of Reliability and Systems Engineering
Beihang University Beihang University
Beijing, China Beijing, China
jytniu@hotmail.com lc@buaa.edu.cn

Feng Xiaodong Guo Zhiqi

State Key Laboratory of Virtual Reality Technology System
Dongling School of Economics and Management
School of Reliability and Systems Engineering
University of Science and Technology Beijing
Beihang University
Beijing, China
Beijing, China
fxdong88@gmail.com
zhiqi.guo@gmail.com

Abstract—Maintenance plays an important role in [2]. At the same time, PM is generally imperfect
guaranteeing facilities’ safety operation, improving facilities’ maintenance and after maintenance, the system is not as
quality, keeping and delaying engineering system lifetime as good as the beginning. Imperfect maintenance refers to a
long as possible. Reasonable and effective PM measures are the maintenance action that does not make a system
strong guarantee for equipment’s well operation. Based on PM,
this paper tries to overcome the shortages of conventional
look like as good as new, but younger. The state of
regular maintenance, and puts forward an optimal policy the system is restored to the place between perfect
which is more realistic and closer to the real maintenance maintenance and imperfect maintenance.
situation. In this optimal model, when system’s reliability This paper aims to minimize the ELTC and optimize PM
reaches the threshold R0, breakdown for PM is needed. In this
paper, reliability threshold is regarded as a constraint, and the model arranging the actions in the system. In this paper, an
goal is to minimize the expected long-run total cost rate. At optimal policy (R, N) for the system is improved. When the
last, a numerical case is used to verify that the optimal model system’s reliability reaches threshold R0, PM is performed.
has more practical significance. This paper provides well ideas If an unexpected failure occurs, minimum maintenance
and methods for well equipment running. should be taken. In this optimal policy, the value of R and N
are determined by the minimal ELTC in the life of the
Keywords- preventive maintenance (PM); reliability system.
threshold; expected long-run total cost rate (ELTC); failure rate
II. PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE OPTIMIZATION MODEL
ACRONYM
PM preventive maintenance A. Notation
ELTC expected long-run total cost rate breakdown cost for each minimal
cbd
repair
I. INTRODUCTION Cbd breakdown cost
Reliability has developed into a field which has attracted Cc replacement cost
a lot of attention. In particular, the studies on system minimal maintenance cost of each
maintenance strategy have great theoretical and practical cim
failure
value. Maintenance management plays a key role in Cm minimal maintenance cost
manufacturing systems to maintain equipment to be in a
good condition and reduce equipment failure rate. preventive maintenance cost in ith
cip
Maintenance optimization has become a very keen cycle
researching question. Barlow firstly presented a minimal Cp preventive maintenance cost
optimization model to find out a replacement age T with tbd breakdown time of minimal repair
minimal ELTC in 1960 [1]. When the system failed, ordinal of preventive maintenance
minimum maintenance, in which replacement cost and i
cycles
minimal repair cost are considered, should be performed
immediately, but the system state was as bad as old after N preventive maintenance cycle
maintenance, and the failure rate function didn’t change. The interval between ith and
Based on this basic model, lots of optimal maintenance Ti (i-1)th preventive maintenance
strategies have been developed to promote system’s cycle
reliability, prevent system failures and reduce maintenance λ(t) failure rate function
costs. Conventional preventive maintenance (CPM) refers to R system’s reliability (0<R<1)
a periodical schedule and it often holds the same interval T
ai age reduction factor
978-1-4799-7958-5/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

589
 bi failure rate increase factor 2) Cost analysis
It is supposed in ith PM cycle, PM cost cip, breakdown
B. Assumption cost cbd and minimum maintenance cost cim are the main
(1) The system is reparable; components of the total cost. In the Nth cycle, replacement
(2) No limitation on maintenance resources and the cost Cc should be instead of cip. The preventive repair cost
Ti
maintenance actions during each cycle are independent;
(3) After replacement, the system is as new as the beginning;
Cp is thus computed as ci p(1 − ∫ 0
λi ( t ) dt ) . The

(4) A new deterioration will happen after PM; minimal repair cost Cm for each cycle is
Ti
(5) When a failure happens, minimum maintenance is
performed during PM cycle and the breakdown time is also
ci m ⋅ ∫ 0
λi ( t ) dt , and the breakdown Cbd cost for each
Ti
considered.
(6) In the system, minimum maintenance cost, preventive
cycle is cbd ⋅ ∫ 0
λi ( t ) dt . Thus, the ELTC function of
maintenance cost and breakdown cost are considered. the system for each PM cycle is inferred as:
(7) In each PM interval, cim is smaller than Cc. Cm + Cp + Cbd
ELTCi =
λi (t ) dt
Ti
During each interval, PM is performed when the value Ti + t bd ⋅ ∫ 0
of system’s reliability appraches R0, and the system should
be replaced when the ELTC reaches the lowest.
=
ci m ∫ λi (t ) dt + ci p 1 −
Ti

0 ( ∫
Ti

0
λi (t ) dt )+c bd
⋅ ∫
Ti

0
λi (t ) dt

λi (t ) dt
Ti
C. Maintenance model Ti + t bd ⋅ ∫ 0
1) Interval between preventive maintenance (6)
Malik [3] introduced ai, to PM, which indicated that the where 0<i<N.
age of the system reduces after PM. Here 0< ai,<1, and the
In the PM policy, when the system’s reliability threshold
failure rate function will be λi(t+ ai,t). Meanwhile bi was
reaches R0 at the N-th time, replacement repair will happen.
also considered [4], which indicates that system’s failure
So the ELTC function in the N-th cycle is:
rate increases because of the deterioration of the system.
Here bi >1 and the failure rate function will be biλi(t). Cm + Cc + Cbd
ELTCN =
λN (t ) dt
TN
In this paper, both of these two factors are considered in
system’s failure rate function. The value of ai and bi can be
TN + t bd ⋅ ∫ 0

ci m ∫ λN (t ) dt + Cc + cbd ⋅ λN (t ) dt
TN TN
got based on the historical maintenance data. Thus, the
= 0 ∫ 0
function of system’s failure rate can be shown as:
λN (t ) dt
TN
TN + t bd ⋅ ∫
λi +1 (t ) = bi λi (t + ai t i ) t ∈ (0, Ti+1) (1)
0
(7)
0< ai,<1, bi >1 where i=N.
If ai, and bi are not considered, the system’s failure rate To ensure system reliability and minimize the total
function will be the same during each PM cycle, which average cost rate, the optimization model can be shown as:
leads to the system’s deteriorating process can’t be
described. ⎧ N ELTC ⋅ ( T + t ⋅ Ti λ t dt ) ⎫⎪
⎪∑
mi n ⎨ i =1 N
i bd ∫0 i ( ) ⎬
(8)
System’s reliability equation is shown as:
∑i =1(Ti + t bd ⋅ ∫ 0 λi (t ) dt )
Ti
⎪ ⎪
⎩ ⎭
{ T
R( t ) = exp − ∫ λ( t ) dt
0 } (2) 3) Procedure
The purpose of the optimization model is to find the
It is assumed that PM should be performed in each reasonable reliability threshold R0 and maintenance cycle N
maintenance cycle when the system’s reliability reaches R0. to make sure the ELTC is the lowest. The search algorithm
So maintenance interval can be shown as below: is shown as follows:

{ 0
Ti
exp − ∫ λi ( t ) dt }=R 0
. (3) a) Suppose the reliability threshold R based on a
known failure function;
It is rewritten as: b) Solve the first cycle of maintenance intervals;
Ti c) Solve the second failure function through the
− ∫ λi ( t ) dt = l n R0 . (4) equation in which the improved factors are introduced.
0
Depending on the threshold R0, get the second interval.
In this paper, the breakdown time for minimal repair is
involved, and each breakdown time is tbd. Thus, the total Then get the next maintenance interval.
interval for each cycle of preventive maintenance is shown d) Calculate the ELTC;
as below: e) R0=R0+0.01 and 0.5≤R0 ≤0.99, then return to
Ti step b).
Ti + t bd ⋅ ∫λi (t ) dt , (5)
0 III. NUMERICAL CASE
Ti
In this study, a numerical case is used to demonstrate the
where ∫ 0
λi ( t ) dt implicates the average number of
effective of this model. In this paper, Weibull distribution is
failures’ occurrence. chosen to describe the failure rate of machine and
electronically engineering. David [5] modeled a 2-parameter

590
Weibull distribution for PM in which a wear-out failure 3.6

mode was introduced. Chen and Feldman [6], based on 3.5

Weibull distribution, proposed a replacement policy.
Weibull distribution function is shown as:
3.4

3.3
β −1
β ⎛t ⎞ (9)
λ (t ) = ⎜ ⎟ 3.2
η ⎝η ⎠
In this equation, the parameters are deduced from the 3.1

historical maintenance data. In this equation, βrepresents 3

Shape parameter and η represents scale parameter.

2.9

In this optimal model, assume β=5 and η=200. In this 2.8

0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95
model cbd=100, Cc=50, cim=370, cip=160 and tbd=10. In order
to improve system’s failure rate function, we consider age Figure 1 Relationship between ELTC and R0
reduction factor ai as well as failure rate increase factor bi,
where ai=2i/(5i+8), bi=(13+3)/(11i+4) [7]. TABLE 2 INTERVAL FOR OPTIMIZATION WHEN R0=0.83
To addressee the issue of no replacement but infinite T1 T2 T3
number of repair, we set the research range of preventive
142.93 120.67 92.33
maintenance cycle be N ∈ [1,10]. If R is much lower, the
reliability of the system cannot be guaranteed. The system’s 4.8

reliability range is R ∈ [0.5, 0.99] for computation 4.6

simplification and resources saving. 4.4

The achievement of simulation results is based on 4.2

Matlab and the results of ELTC are shown in Table 1. It can 4

be observed that the lowest ELTC of the system is 2.8746 3.8

and the reliability threshold R0 is 0.83. Meanwhile, the 3.6
replacement will be performed at the 3th PM cycle.
3.4

Figure 1 Relationship between ELTC and R0gives the 3.2

relationship between ELTC and R0. Table 2 gives the 3

intervals of the PM cycle under the optimal PM policy (0.83, 2.8
3). It can be seen that the interval decreases along with the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

increase of maintenance actions, which confirms that the Figure 2 the curve of ELTC when R=0.83
system degenerate faster with the increase of usage. Figure
2 shows the curve of ELTC when R=0.83, and the lowest IV. DISCUSSION
point is ELTC=2.8746 when N=3. In order to present the importance of ai and bi two
different situations are considered: policy1 is “Do not
TABLE 1 SIMULATION RESULT
consider age reduction factor - ai ”, policy 2 is “Do not
R/ELTC/
1 2 3 4 5 consider failure rate increase factor - bi ”. Figure 3 shows
N the relationship between ELTC and R0 in these two
0.76 4.0020 3.0689 2.9101 2.9881 3.1723
situations. The optimal (R, N) policy of policy 1 is (0.86 10),
0.77 4.0044 3.0629 2.9012 2.9769 3.1589 and the corresponding minimal ELTC is 1.9696. The
0.78 4.0084 3.0580 2.8934 2.9669 3.1467 optimal (R, N) policy of policy 2 is (0.83, 3) and the
corresponding minimal ELTC is 2.8844. It can be seen that
0.79 4.0142 3.0544 2.8868 2.9580 3.1357 the policy which considering the age reduction factor and
0.80 4.0219 3.0522 2.8815 2.9504 3.1261 failure rate increase factor is more realistic.
0.81 4.0316 3.0515 2.8776 2.9442 3.1180 3.6
Policy 2
Policy 1
0.82 4.0437 3.0524 2.8752 2.9396 3.1115 3.4
Optimal ETC

0.83 4.0584 3.0553 2.8746 2.9368 3.1068 3.2

3
0.84 4.0760 3.0602 2.8758 2.9358 3.1042
2.8
0.85 4.0969 3.0676 2.8793 2.9371 3.1038
2.6
0.86 4.1217 3.0776 2.8853 2.9409 3.1061
2.4
0.87 4.1509 3.0909 2.8941 2.9475 3.1114
2.2

1.8
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Figure 3 Relationship between ELTC and R0 in two different situations:

policy 1 and policy2

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 V. CONCLUSION [2] Zhou X, Xi L, Lee J. Reliability-centered predictive maintenance
scheduling for a continuously monitored system subject to
This paper presents a (R, N) policy to minimize the degradation[J]. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2007,
ELTC. When the system’s reliability reaches threshold R0, 92(4): 530-534.
PM should be performed to restore the system. Proposed [3] Malik, M. (1979). Reliable preventive maintenance policy.AIIE
model, in which system’s age reduction factor and failure Transactions, 11(3), 221–228.
rate increase factor are both considered, is more reasonable [4] Nakagawa, T. (1988). Sequential imperfect preventive
and practical. The result shows the interval of PM is more maintenancepolicies.IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 37(3),
295–298. doi:10.1109/24.3758.
practical than age-T policy which helps to prepare
[5] David, M. R., et al. (1999). Improving availability and cost
maintenance actions. performancefor complex systems with preventive maintenance.
Based on the PM model, much further study could be InProceedings of the annual reliability and maintainability
symposium(pp. 383–388).
done. For example, the influence of the resources constraint
[6] Chen, M., & Feldman, R. M. (1997). Optimal replacement
on PM interval could be well discussed. policieswith minimal repair and age-dependent costs.European
Journal of Operational Research, 98(1), 75–84.
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