An integrated modular design methodology based on maintenance performance consideration

Abstract

Maintenance nowadays not only plays a crucial role in the usage phase, but is fast becoming the primary focus of the design stage—especially with general increased emphasis on product service. The modularization of maintenance has been explored rarely by previous researchers, despite its significant potential benefit. Existing modular design methods on life cycle do not sufficiently improve maintenance performance as a whole. In effort to remedy this, this article considers relevant maintenance issues at early stages of product development and presents a novel modular methodology based on the simultaneous consideration of maintenance and modularity characteristics. The proposed method first employs the design structure matrix to analyze the comprehensive correlation among components. Next, based on graph theory, initial modules with high cohesion and low coupling are generated. After that, a maintenance performance multi-objective model is established for further optimization to minimize maintenance costs, minimize differences in the maintenance cycle, and maximize system availability. To conclude, an improved strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 is used for modular optimization. The complete methodology is demonstrated using a case study with a hydraulic press, where results reveal that the optimized modules can reduce maintenance cost under the premise of approximately constant modular performance.