A systems simulation approach to integrate maintenance operations

The authors describe a systems simulation study to investigate new work load assignment techniques and explore the potential for integrating related maintenance operations. The concept of a universal technician is introduced to facilitate the integration of tasks of differing complexities. The maintenance operations are modeled as an acyclic network of G|G|M-FCFS (first-come first-served) queues with Markov routing and nonstationary arrivals. Since such a network is typically intractable even under renewal approximations, a simulation model is used. The alternatives, namely, the current operations and the proposed integrated operations, are compared in terms of manpower requirements and service levels. An economic analysis of the alternatives reveals significant long-term savings in integrating the maintenance operations