A generalised maintenance policy with age-dependent minimal repair cost for a system subject to shocks under periodic overhaul

Abstract

A system is subject to shocks that arrive according to a non-homogeneous Poisson process. As shocks occur, the system has two types of failures: type 1 failure (minor failure) is removed by a minimal repair, whereas type 2 failure (catastrophic failure) is removed by overhaul or replacement. The cost of minimal repair depends on age. A system is overhauled when the occurrence of a type 2 failure or at age T, whichever occurs first. At the N-th overhaul, the system is replaced rather than overhauled. A maintenance policy for determining optimal number of overhauls and optimal interval between overhauls which incorporate minimal repairs, overhauls and replacement is proposed. Under such a policy, an approach which using the concept of virtual age is adopted. It is shown that there exists a unique optimal policy which minimises the expected cost rate under certain conditions. Various cases are considered.