Rapid modeling of field maintenance using discrete event simulation

Discrete event simulation has been applied to a wide range of applications areas due to its ability to represent stochastic systems over time. Maintenance, particularly field maintenance, is complex due to the interaction of different sub-systems of use, maintenance, repair and inventory and the conflicting demands of minimizing cost and maximizing availability. The area of simulation of maintenance systems receives little treatment in the literature and tends to focus on reliability modeling of individual assets. The work presented here documents research to fill this gap by specifying, creating and testing simulation functionality to rapidly model field maintenance systems.