Preventive Maintenance of the k-out-of-n System with Respect to Cost-Type Criterion

Abstract

In a previous paper, the problem of how the preventive maintenance organization for the k-out-of-n: F system could be used, in order to maximize system availability, was considered. The current paper continues these investigations using a different optimization criterion. The proposed approach is based on decision making theory for regenerative processes. We propose a general procedure for comparing different preventive maintenance strategies based on the ordered statistics distributions, aiming to choose the best one with respect to cost-type criterion. The lifetime distributions of system units are usually unknown and only one or two of their moments are available. For this reason, we pay special attention to the sensitivity analysis of decision making about preventive maintenance, taking into account the shape of the system unit lifetime distributions. A numerical study of two examples based on a real-world system illustrates the results of the proposed approach.