Modeling and optimization of deteriorating equipment with predictive maintenance and inspection

The predictive maintenance policy of deteriorating equipment is studied in the paper. A semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) is utilized to modeling the deteriorating equipment. The model includes the inspection state which assumes equipment can fail due to both deterioration and random causes. The alternative action includes do nothing, do minor maintenance and do major maintenance after the inspection. The objective is to optimize the inspection rate for maximum availability of deteriorating equipment. A special case study demonstrates that the inspection can significantly improve the availability of the equipment, if the frequency is properly determined.