A joint policy for condition-based maintenance and spare provisioning using simulation

A condition-based order-replacement policy is presented for a single-unit system, in order to optimize the maintenance and the spare parts inventory jointly. In this policy, equipment degradation is modeled using a continuous gamma process and degradation information may be obtained from continuous state monitoring. A simulation model is developed by integrating the process of deterioration, condition monitoring, replacement activities and spare provisioning. On this basis, the Monte-Carlo method and the iterative method are utilized to get the best preventive maintenance threshold D_pm and maximum stock level S. Numerical experiments have shown that a reasonable optimal solution can be obtained by employing a decision-making on maintenance and spare parts inventory under the promise of satisfy specified stockout probability.