On-Line Optimization of Maintenance and Verification Schedules

For a complex system it is often difficult to determine a schedule for maintenance or verification that is neither needlessly frequent nor dangerously infrequent. A technique is discussed for using the system itself to derive the maintenance schedule that yields a given mean time between failures. The technique does not require calculation of the MTBF, but allows adaptive convergence to the desired result. Convergence is guaranteed for reasonable assumptions.