Optimization of Distributed Maintenance: Design, Scheduling and Capacitated Routing Problem

Abstract

This paper deals with scheduling maintenance operations for a set of geographically distributed production equipment. The problem emerges in distributed maintenance context, where a central maintenance workshop (CMW) aims to monitor and repair equipment from various production sites and schedule the associated preventive actions. A mobile maintenance workshop (MMW) transports all the resources required for the maintenance tasks to replace the equipment with spare parts provided by the CMW following the predefined schedule. This study proposes a general approach and a model to minimize the maintenance and routing costs while optimizing equipment reliability. The novelty of the proposed model is the consideration of the MMW capacity while designing and scheduling distributed maintenance. We perform several experiments based on a real-world case study to implement the model and highlight its relevance. The studied approach allows choosing the CMW position and the MMW capacity while making a trade-off between the costs and the availability of production equipment.