Maintenance optimization in failure-prone systems under imperfect preventive maintenance

In the majority of the existing preventive optimization models only costs related to maintenance actions are accounted for, while breakdown and operational costs are usually ignored. Liao et al. (J Intell Manuf 21(6):875-884, 2010) proposed a preventive maintenance model to deal with this shortcoming. In the present paper, we revisit and discuss the results provided in Liao et al. (2010) and point out some inconsistencies in the maintenance optimization model proposed therein. Accordingly, we develop a new maintenance optimization model and discuss some of its main cost components. Furthermore, optimality conditions are also formally investigated and a solution method is provided. Numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the validity of the proposed approach and results are compared with those provided in the original paper by Liao et al. (2010).