Modelling maintenance effects on manufacturing equipment performance: results from simulation analysis

Equipment maintenance and system reliability are important factors affecting the organisation’s ability to provide quality and timely services to customer. While maintenance remains an important function to manufacturing, it is only recently that attempts have been made to quantify its impact on equipment performance. In this research, an approach of linking maintenance with equipment performance is developed using simulation modelling. The modelling approach involves defining probabilistic models and assumptions affecting system performance, such as: the probabilistic model for the initial failure rate/intensity of the equipment; the probabilistic model for the system deterioration and corresponding effect; the probabilistic model for the random times of corrective maintenance (CM) and preventive maintenance (PM) that takes into the account the types of maintenance plans/policies and the potential dependency between CM and PM times; and the probabilistic model for the random effects of CM and PM on the reliability of the equipment. Using a continuous manufacturing equipment, the model is used to analyse the impact of deterioration, failures and maintenance (policies, timing and efficiency) on equipment performance. It is shown that modelling the effect maintenance provides a basis of evaluating maintenance efforts with the potential application in performance evaluation and decision support while investigating opportunities for manufacturing equipment performance improvement.