Optimal preventive maintenance policies in a serial production system

There have been many publications dealing with preventive maintenance policies for stochastically deteriorating systems. However, most of them study systems having one device subject to failure. Much of the limited research dealing with multi-device production systems has been conducted through simulation experiments. In this paper, the preventive maintenance problem for serial production systems is formulated as a mathematical model. This formulation permits management to analyse the impact of a preventive maintenance policy on a serial production system without resorting to simulation. Numerical examples are used to provide managerial implications for maintaining a serial production system. The results show that the operating characteristics of the stations are interrelated; therefore, it is important to examine the joint effects of a maintenance policy on the various stations of the production system simultaneously rather than study each station separately.