Editorial: Optimization of Maintenance Activities—Models, Methods, and Applications

Abstract

The present special volume of the Annals of Operations Research consists of articles submitted to the Journal following the workshop Optimization of Maintenance Activities— Models, Methods and Applications, which was held at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, ChalmersUniversity of Technology andUniversity ofGothenburg, Goteborg, Sweden, December 10–11, 2009. Performing the right maintenance activities is crucial for the safety, reliability, availability, and profitability of a large range of operations and activities; it is also increasingly widely recognized as important for the sustainability of vital resources. The purpose of theworkshop, which gathered 34 participants from several countries as well as from several academic and industrial fields, was to discuss the state-of-the-art and future challenges and possibilities in modelling and solving these problems, and of applying their solutions. During the workshop there were interesting and stimulating discussions on detailed modelling and analysis questions, as well as on across subject boundaries, including problems associatedwith the practical implementation of solutions frommathematical models ofmaintenance problems. The presentations covered operations research-based modeling and analysis approaches to important maintenance problems. Theory and applications, case studies, as well as tutorials on state-of-the-art practices and methods were presented. During the two days two plenary talks and twelve regular presentations were given; articles based on six of the latter are published in this volume. The first plenary talk, entitled “On the optimization of condition-based maintenance decisions”, was given by professor Andrew Jardine, Centre for Maintenance Optimization and Reliability Engineering, University of Toronto. The second plenary talk, entitled “An overview of models tackling maintenance and production”, was given by professor Rommert Dekker, Erasmus School of Economics, Rotterdam.