A degradation model for maintenance improvement in respect of cost and availability

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for degradation data in order to improve the reliability and the mean residual life estimation of a specific item of equipment and to adapt the preventive maintenance tasks accordingly.

Design/methodology/approach

An initial reliability model which uses a degradation-based reliability model that is built from the collection of hitting times of a failure threshold. The proposed maintenance model is based on the cost/availability criterion. The estimation of both reliability and optimum time for preventive maintenance are updated with all new degradation data that are collected during operating time.

Findings

An improvement for the occurrences of maintenance tasks which minimizes the mean cost per unit of time and increases the availability.

Practical implications

Inspection tasks to measure the degradation level should be realized at least one time for each item of equipment at a specific time determined by the proposed methodology.

Originality/value

The introduction of a criterion which helps the maintainer to decide to postpone or not the preventive replacement time depending on the measured degradation level of a specific item of equipment.

Citation

Letot, C., Dehombreux, P., Rivière-Lorphèvre, E., Fleurquin, G. and Lesage, A. (2015), "A degradation model for maintenance improvement in respect of cost and availability", Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 55-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/JQME-01-2013-0001