Title: Optimal replacement policies of repairable systems subject to shocks

Authors: Timothy I. Matis, Alagar Rangan, Dimple Thyagarajan

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University, Box 43061, Lubbock, Texas 79409–3061, USA. ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazimagosa, TRNC, via Mersin 10, Turkey. ' Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai-600 036, India

Abstract: We consider a repairable system subject to a sequence of randomly occurring shocks, each of which results in a random amount of damage to the system. There are k general repair actions available, out of which one is chosen at each instant of shock arrival. The distributions of successive operating times between shocks and successive repair times are degenerative and dependent on the repair actions chosen earlier. System failure takes place when the accumulated damage crosses a fixed threshold level. We discuss optimal replacement strategies under an N-policy and a T-policy.

Keywords: repairable systems; replacement policies; cumulative damage; shock arrival processes; repair processes; geometric process; N-policy; T-policy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2007.012463

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2007 Vol.2 No.3, pp.286 - 298

Published online: 16 Feb 2007 *

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