A Condition Based Maintenance Model with Exponential Failures and Fixed Inspection Intervals

Abstract

This paper discusses a condition based maintenance model with exponential failures, and fixed inspection intervals. A condition of the equipment, such as vibration, is monitored at equidistant time intervals. If the variable indicating the condition is above a threshold an instantaneous maintenance action is performed and the monitored condition takes on its initial value. The equipment can fail only once within an inspection interval. The probability of failure is exponential and the failure rate is dependent on the condition. The cost to be minimized is the long-run average cost of maintenance actions and failures. We study the optimal solution to this problem obtained via dynamic programming and compare it to an approximate steady state solution based on renewal theory.