Maintenance Strategies Definition Based on Systemic Resilience Assessment: A Fuzzy Approach

Abstract

The present paper aims to provide production systems with a decision-making tool that allows the assessment of the resilience of their equipment, processes and/or sub systems and, certainly, the system itself. The ultimate goal is to detect the critical points of a production system in order to gain strength, efficiency and resilience to face new and existing threats and challenges. In this regard, this paper presents a model that aims to calculate the resilience score of a process from various parameters and to rate it on the resilience scale using linguistic terms. In order to manage uncertainty, a fuzzy model has been put forward with the objective of being an integral tool of maintenance strategy surveillance and definition. Finally, and towards putting into practice the proposed model, a real case study, in the context of mining operations, is presented. This will help the process identify the areas/equipment for improvement and afterwards overcome weaknesses that may affect the entire system’s resilience. The aforementioned model provides great support to the decision-making process in the field of plant maintenance strategies and physical asset management. We believe that the main impact of this proposal is that through the use of this type of decision tool, the correct definition of maintenance strategies and the appropriate selection of system topologies could be made regarding the systemic resilience as an overall objective.