Maintenance strategy for leased equipment

In case of leasing, the user rents equipment for a predetermined time. During this period, all maintenance actions are performed by the lessor. The aim of this research paper consists in determining an optimal maintenance policy for ensuring a minimum reliability, required by the customer. Two strategies are proposed: the first consists in performing preventive actions whenever the system reliability reaches a pre-defined reliability threshold. These actions are characterized by a reduction of the system age. The objective is therefore to determine the effectiveness factor of the optimal maintenance minimizing maintenance costs. For the second strategy, "improving" actions replace corrective actions during an interval to be determined to minimize maintenance costs. The first strategy will be solved using a numerical procedure and the second strategy uses an algorithm of discrete event simulation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.