Opportunistic preventive maintenance scheduling for multi-unit reusable rocket engine system based on the variable maintenance task window method

Jet engines are critical assets in aircraft, and their availability is crucial in the modern aircraft industry. Therefore, their maintenance scheduling is one of the major tasks an airline has to make during an engine’s lifetime. A proper engine maintenance schedule can significantly reduce maintenance costs without compromising the aircraft's reliability and safety. Different maintenance scheduling approaches have been used for jet engines, such as corrective, preventive, and predictive maintenance strategies. Regarding the safety demands in aircraft industries, preventive maintenance is a frequent maintenance method for jet engines. However, preventive maintenance schedules are often use fixed maintenance intervals, which is usually suboptimal. This paper focuses on minimizing a jet engine's overall maintenance cost by optimizing its preventive maintenance schedule based on an engine’s comprehensive reliability model. A hierarchical optimization framework including the golden section search and genetic algorithms is applied to find the optimal set of preventive maintenance number and their times and the components to be replaced at those times during the jet engine's overall lifetime. The Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate the engine’s failure times using their lifetime distributions from the reliability model. The estimated failure times are then used to determine the engine's overall corrective and preventive maintenance costs during its lifetime. Finally, an optimal preventive maintenance schedule is proposed for an RB 211 jet engine using the presented method. In the end, comparing the proposed method's overall maintenance cost with two other maintenance methods demonstrates the proposed schedule's effectiveness. The method presented in this paper is generic, and it can be used for other similar engineering systems.

Maintenance is regarded as one of the effective methods to enhance the reliability of nuclear power plant (NPP) system. The existing research works on NPP maintenance optimization mainly focus on the preventive maintenance (PM) scheduling, with the common assumption that activities are performed at scheduled time. Though the straightforward asset management brought by PM scheduling, its inflexibility could result to either unnecessary maintenance activities or undiscovered failures. On the other hand, due to the budget limit it's inappropriate to neglect the shortage of maintenance workers and the missed plans caused by it. In this research, an integrated scheduling of maintenance workers and activities for NPP subsystem is considered. Effective age is used to determine the performed maintenance activities while measuring its effectiveness. To deal with this problem, a mathematical model is established with the objective of minimizing the total cost. Maintenance starting time, workers and activities of each component over the scheduling horizon are regarded as decision variables. The proposed model is applied to an NPP feed water subsystem and solved by specially designed genetic algorithm.

Security constrained Preventive Maintenance (PM) scheduling is addressed as a crucial issue especially coping with new challenges of smart grids. Under the smart grid environment, Demand Response Resources (DRRs) are considered as virtual power plants in energy policy decisions which affect the controllability of power system ranging from short-term to long-term. Here, DRRs are regarded as a virtual resource of capacity reserve acquisition. Furthermore, under new environment, multifarious objectives will be imposed to PM scheduling which can be replicated into a single objective problem via a weighted approach with consideration of arbitrary weighting coefficients. In this paper, a new structure is proposed for determining the efficient weighting factors for reserve cost, operation cost, and generated emissions in PM scheduling associated with DR Programs (DRPs) the so-called PMDRPs. Utilizing Entropy method as one of the Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) techniques, the aforementioned factors are determined in a two phase hierarchy. Using the nominated structure, the maintenance scheme, commitment status, energy scheduling, and demand-as well as supply-side reserve scheduling are determined along the scheduling horizon. The numerical studies are carried out on the IEEE-RTS to confirm the capability of the proposed framework.

The maintenance of any system can be categorized in two ways: failure based maintenance (corrective maintenance) and life based maintenance (preventive maintenance). The time interval at which the preventive maintenance could be scheduled is dependent on both the life distribution of the subsystems/components and the total cost involved in the maintenance activity. However, the corrective maintenance cannot be avoided when a random failure of a component occurs. The total cost of the maintenance depends on the number of components replaced during the entire operating period of the system and the respective cost involved in maintenance actions. In this paper the preventive maintenance schedule (t/sub 0/) is calculated taking the failure distribution of a component as Weibull. The variation in (t/sub 0/) with respect to the shape parameter (/spl beta/) and characteristic life (/spl alpha/) of the Weibull distribution was studied by the author for a given preventive maintenance cost and corrective maintenance cost. The ratio of the corrective maintenance cost to the preventive maintenance cost (R/sub cp/) has a significant effect on the maintenance schedule (t/sub 0/). Thus the variation of (t/sub 0/) with (R/sub cp/) is addressed in this paper. The ratio is varied between 10 and 1.5. It is found that the (t/sub 0/) value increases as shape parameter increases when the ratio is 10 whereas the (to) value decreases when the ratio is 1.5. This shows that as we decrease the cost ratio (R/sub cp/) the frequency of preventive maintenance decreases with shape parameter. This in turn implies that the frequency of the preventive maintenance schedule can be kept at minimum by bringing down the cost of corrective maintenance. Sensitivity analysis carried out on the (t/sub 0/) values indicates that the variation in the cost of maintenance is about 5 to 8 percent :in all the cases even when the value of (t/sub 0/) is increased. by 50% over the optimum value. This indicates, while the optimum value of (to) obtained may be of academic interest, one can 'in practice' choose a convenient value near the optimum without appreciably affecting the advantage in terms of cost.

Economic production lot-sizing for an unreliable machine under imperfect age-based maintenance policy

PurposeThis paper aims to revisit the preventive maintenance scheduling literature. The problem to be solved is the simultaneous scheduling of resource‐constrained preventive maintenance and operations. In particular, the expression that defines the period‐dependent cost function for a preventive maintenance scheduling activity is redefined. A case study is presented from the shipping industry.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper a mathematical theory of differential calculus known as three‐dimensional wave equation is applied. The methodology involves transforming the preventive maintenance cost function that is expressed in terms of several variables into a more precise framework. The motivation for the work is the need to measure the total preventive maintenance scheduling cost more precisely than with the use of the existing linear cost structure.FindingsIn this paper the findings from the analysis carried out found evidence that validates the claim of the feasibility of analyzing preventive maintenance cost using the approach proposed.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper shows that, in practice, maintenance managers strive to reduce the cost of preventive maintenance activities in order to achieve low cost production of goods. This would encourage a high patronage of customers and prevent decisions being made on wrong data. The approach presented here aims at correcting this weakness by revealing a more precise and reliable method of preventive maintenance scheduling cost computation. This is a scientific tool that should be of immense benefit to maintenance planners, particularly those actively engaged in scheduling functions.Originality/valueThe work in this paper is new, since a novel framework is presented in a way that has not been documented earlier.

An integrated optimization framework for multi-cycle environmental stress screening tests and preventive maintenance scheduling is proposed. The proposed framework considers the improvement of product reliability through environmental stress screening tests and the associated screening cost, and the effect of preventive maintenance schedule on the maintenance cost as well. The environmental stress screening model is extended first to be applicable for multi-cycle environmental stress screening tests. The extended environmental stress screening model characterizes the product reliability function which survives the environmental stress screening test in terms of both the number of environmental stress screening cycles and the severity of screening stress. Afterwards, an integrated cost model is established by considering the cost of preventive maintenance, the cost of corrective maintenance, the cost of environmental stress screening test, and the cost due to failure of products in the environmental stress screening test. The application case study demonstrates the implementation procedures and the application effectiveness of the proposed approach. The application results show that, considering the cost due to environmental stress screening and the cost due to maintenance separately could lead to suboptimal decisions. For enterprises responsible for both environmental stress screening and maintenance, it is suggested to optimize the environmental stress screening test and maintenance scheduling jointly to minimize the overall cost.

This paper examines the impact of load on the operational time and maintenance cost of mechanically repairable machines. Three different levels of load with multiplicative impact on the hazard rate of the failure distribution were applied to the working of a cassava grinding machine using a two-parameter Weibull distribution with respective hazard and cumulative hazard functions. Their effect on the preventive maintenance (PM) and replacement schedules revealed that at above maximum load level, the length of the machine’s operational time decreased drastically compared to the decrease at maximum load level and relative decrease at the below maximum load level when compared to the machine’s operational time at the minimum load level. The application of load also results in frequent preventive maintenance actions and an increase in machine downtime for a given cost ratio. This implies that the influence of load on the PM and replacement maintenance schedule of mechanically repairable machines is essential to the design and operation of such machines. The results also provide maintenance engineers with an operational guide for PM and replacement maintenance actions in order to prevent failure maintenance and increase the machine’s availability for enhanced productivity.

Q: Due to constraints in our biomed budget, I was wondering: Is there anyway to reduce the rotations for sterilizers in our preventive maintenance (PM) program?A: Sure. In fact, several years ago, we reduced the rotation and the items we change on sterilizers. Our facility has 11 operating rooms (OR) and two labor-and-delivery rooms. Our sterilizers get fairly heavy use between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. But we're definitely not as busy as facilities that run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So we reduced the PM schedule for some of them to a semiannual basis. This process has worked very well. We have not had any more failures than we had when we did them quarterly. We saved ourselves time and the materials we would have had in replacing those quarterly parts. Certain sterilizers, like the washer-sterilizers, still undergo quarterly PM due to their fairly heavy use and the fact that we only have two in the OR. If one goes down, the impact to our customer is significant.I am making my suggestions based on the assumption that your facility has a good preventive maintenance program and some sort of a program that enables you to track equipment. By tracking equipment repairs, you can monitor the results if you reduce your facility's PM schedule. Our facility continuously monitors work requests through a program in our database. This program allows use to “write” almost any report one can imagine. For example, one of our performance indicators is repeat work requests. We have a report that compiles all such requests during a given period—three months, in our case. Each technician is given the piece of the report related to the equipment that he or she is responsible for. The technician then checks the work requests for that equipment, looking for anything that can be incorporated into a regular PM schedule and prevent a failure. This allows your facility to “hold all the cards,” so to speak. If someone at your facility periodically monitors your success, you will be able to adjust your PM program accordingly.As for what parts can be reduced, that depends on several factors such as use, steam quality, water quality, and maintenance program effectiveness. Our water here tends to be higher in calcium than most parts can tolerate. So we keep water traps and water solenoids on a semiannual schedule. That said, our steam quality is fairly good, and we push our steam parts as long as possible. When we looked at ways to reduce cost, we looked along the line of steam—not water.Another key factor is staff care with equipment. For example, we once had someone in the instrument room who would slam the doors of the sterilizers so hard that the machines shook. We talked to him on several occasions, but he slammed the door right up until his last day at our facility. If that was not bad enough, after slamming it one time, this now-former employee cranked hard on the handle and then brought it to me to report, “It's broke.” Ha, ha! While he worked at our facility, we stepped up the PM frequency on the doors. We would check the handles for tightness, the arms that wind out to make sure they were not missing their holders, the door seal which would snap if brittle and the door was slammed, and the door cover to make sure it had not been bent.But let me end by returning to the big picture. You can and should alter your PM schedule to maximize your resources. Working with a good database, a good PM program can save you time and money. Remember: Garbage in, garbage out.

Shutting down a power plant for any reason is a costly process. Loss of production revenues from one unit can exceed millions of dollars per day. It is therefore good practice to keep outages as short and efficient as possible. A major component of planned outages is Preventive Maintenance (PM). It is important that PM be applied only where needed. Unnecessary PM is costly, not only in terms of labor and material costs, but in additional lost time and production. Further, there are cases where PM is contraindicated by standard reliability models, i.e. components with decreasing failure rates. This can paradoxically introduce failures, incurring additional repair costs and production loss. The risk management group at the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station (STPEGS) has successfully developed software to optimize PM schedules by minimizing total costs and risks associated with corrective maintenance (CM) and PM. The optimum PM interval is determined as a multiple of outage cycles. Components are evaluated based on maintenance type, risk ranking, cost of performing CM at power, and regulatory or internal commitments. This information provided to systems engineering assists in determining whether to advance PM from an upcoming outage, or defer PM to a subsequent outage. Components with maintenance that can be performed online are outside of the scope of this paper and are not considered here.

In this paper, we deal with a preventive maintenance (PM) scheduling and spare parts problems for a rolling stock system. We determine the optimal PM interval and the optimal number of spare parts for components in the rolling stock system to minimize the system life cycle cost during satisfying the system target availability. The system availability and system life cycle cost are estimated by simulation. A genetic algorithm and a simulated annealing are proposed to find the optimal PM intervals and the optimal spare parts number of all components. Numerical examples are also studied.

This paper presents a new strategy for reliability-based Preventive Inspection and Maintenance (PIM) scheduling of coal-fired power plants considering maintenance costs. Preventive Inspection and Maintenance Interval (PIMI) for any series or parallel subsystem is optimised at the reliability level where total (preventive and corrective) life cycle maintenance cost is the minimum. PIM of any series subsystem in a continuous operating power plant is difficult since off-working period is unavailable. Therefore a time management strategy followed by maintenance class formation is introduced for their PIM according to the estimated PIMIs. Here corrective maintenance of any failed subsystem along with PIM of the remaining subsystems in the same maintenance class is suggested. The case studies reveal that the optimum PIMIs of the subsystems vary from 75.8% to 93.2% reliability level. The proposed maintenance strategy is very simple, easy to implement, improves availability and reduces the maintenance costs.

Imperfect preventive maintenance optimization for flexible flowshop manufacturing cells considering sequence-dependent group scheduling

Repairable systems deteriorate with age and usage. In order to maintain acceptable reliability and prevent sudden failures, preventive maintenance (PM) is often applied to such systems. Scheduled PM actions can improve system availability and minimize losses due to breakdowns and failures. However, condition‐based PM is considered more relevant to system status than age‐based PM for deteriorating repairable systems. In this study, we consider the production yield rate as the condition variable when determining the optimal PM schedule. A non‐homogeneous Poisson process is used to describe the system deterioration, and the concept of system effective (virtual) age is also considered to make the proposed model more realistic. Three different condition‐based PM strategies are presented to provide more diverse choices for decision makers in terms of solving problems based on the situation at hand. The results show that the optimal yield rate threshold can reduce system failure while maintaining acceptable system availability and product quality with affordable costs due to a proper PM schedule. Furthermore, the results of the numerical application showed that the maintenance and penalty costs are the most sensitive to the total cost, where the adoption of the proposed PM strategies are more profitable when related costs are low.

Traditionally, gas turbine power plant preventive maintenance schedules are set with constant intervals based on recommendations from the equipment suppliers. Preventive maintenance is based on fleet-wide experience as a guideline as long as individual unit experience is not available. In reality, the operating conditions for each gas turbine may vary from site to site and from unit to unit. Furthermore, the gas turbine is a repairable deteriorating system, and preventive maintenance usually restores only part of its performance. This suggests a gas turbine needs more frequent inspection and maintenance as it ages. A unit-specific sequential preventive maintenance approach is therefore needed for gas turbine power plant preventive maintenance scheduling. Traditionally, the optimization criteria for preventive maintenance scheduling is usually cost based. However, in the deregulated electric power market, a profit-based optimization approach is expected to be more effective than the cost-based approach. In such an approach, power plant performance, reliability, and the market dynamics are considered in a joint fashion. In this paper, a novel idea that economic factors drive maintenance frequency and expense to more frequent repairs and greater expense as equipment ages is introduced, and a profit-based unit-specific sequential preventive maintenance scheduling methodology is developed. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, a conceptual level study is performed using a base load combined cycle power plant with a single gas turbine unit.