Experimental design in production and maintenance control problem of a single machine, single product manufacturing system

Abstract

This paper describes an approach to control the production and preventive maintenance rates of a manufacturing system using a computer simulation experiment. The system consists of one machine producing one part type which is subject to failures, repairs and preventive maintenance activities. The production and maintenance planning problem in such a system is a highly complex control problem. It has been shown that, when the transition rates are constant, the hedging point policy is optimal. Owing to the machine age dependent failure distribution, a practical conjecture is made on the dependence of the control variables on the machine age. The hedging point policy is then age dependent. In this paper, we determine the optimal parameters of a modified hedging point policy. The experimental design is used to prove the significance of the control variables compared with the dependent variable or incurred cost. A second-order response surface is fitted in the presence of a random block effect to estimate the relationship between the incurred cost and the independent variables (stock and machine age). The best parameters of the related hedging point policy are derived from a minimum search of the obtained cost function. Numerical results are presented in order to illustrate the efficiency of the analytical and simulation approaches combination.