Predictive maintenance policy for a gradually deteriorating system subject to stress

This paper deals with a predictive maintenance policy for a continuously deteriorating system subject to stress. We consider a system with two failure mechanisms which are, respectively, due to an excessive deterioration level and a shock. To optimize the maintenance policy of the system, an approach combining statistical process control (SPC) and condition-based maintenance (CBM) is proposed. CBM policy is used to inspect and replace the system according to the observed deterioration level. SPC is used to monitor the stress covariate. In order to assess the performance of the proposed maintenance policy and to minimize the long-run expected maintenance cost per unit of time, a mathematical model for the maintained system cost is derived. Analysis based on numerical results are conducted to highlight the properties of the proposed maintenance policy in respect to the different maintenance parameters. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.