A delay-time model with safety constraint

Abstract

We consider the basic delay-time model in which a system has three states, the perfect functioning state, a defective state and the failure state. The system is deteriorating and to reduce the number of failures, preventive replacements are carried out when the system is in the defective state. The time in the defective state is referred to as the delay time. Inspections are required to check whether the system is in the defective state. System failures are safety critical and to control the risk, management considers two types of safety constraints: (i) the probability of at least one failure in the interval [ 0 , A ] should not exceed a fixed probability ω 1 and (ii) the fraction of time the system is in the defective state should not exceed a fixed limit ω 2 . The problem is to determine optimal inspection intervals T, minimizing the expected discounted costs under the safety constraints. Conditions are established for when the safety constraints affect the optimal inspection time and causes increased costs.