Performance Assessment of a Closed Loop Repair Process in the Circular Economy Context

Abstract

It is well known that the dependability of equipment on a production site is strongly linked to the quality of maintenance operations. This paper focuses on repair shops dedicated to the overhaul of defective equipment from several sites, via circular economy strategies. The literature provides analytical and numerical models that allow the performance of a repair shop to be evaluated under certain conditions. However, the majority of studies do not highlight the impact of component degradation after each equipment overhaul. We propose to study the life cycle of components throughout a repair process. Each component begins a cycle with a discrete failure rate that increases with the number of operations undergone. At the end of their life, components undergo an operation that allows them to have a second life. The novelty of this paper lies in the evaluation of the impact of the component life cycle on the performance of a repair shop. We propose a closed-loop model with which we were able to carry out a case study in the railway sector. The results show that considering several levels of component degradation in the repair shop has an impact on maintenance costs.