Dynamic Preventive Maintenance Policy Based on Health Index
LIAO Wen-zhu, PAN Er-shun, XI Li-feng
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Abstract - The purpose of this article is to propose a
dynamic preventive maintenance policy for the repairable
deteriorating system. Assume that the system after repair
can not be “as good as new”, and general repair which
brings nonstationary recovery is adopted. We propose the
health index (HI) which can be inspected by equipment to
describe the status of the system, and suppose that general
repair has the corresponding recovery ability for different
health index. Then, a discrete Markov decision process
(MDP) for the maintenance policy optimization under
minimizing the long-term average cost rate is built. Finally, a
real case study from Chen and Feldman (1997) is presented
to verify that the abovementioned methodology is efficient
and practical.
Keywords - Preventive Maintenance, Health Index,
Markov Process
I. INTRODUCTION
Almost all systems in the complex manufacturing
process deteriorate with time, which can cause high
operation costs and low efficiency. Because these failures
are subject to stochastic, the maintenance policy is a very
crucial work. In the actual system, just replace the system
when failure occurs may be not an economical way, so
repair the failed component or replace it a little earlier
should be much more practical.
To increase availability of the repairable deteriorating
system and decrease system’s operation costs, Preventive
Maintenance (PM) which means all actions intended to
keep durable equipment in good operating condition and
to avoid failures has been strongly focused in practice. In
preventive maintenance activities, the repair actions can
be subdivided into perfect repair, minimal repair, and
imperfect repair. A perfect repair restores the system to be
as good as new. A minimal repair restores the system to
be as bad as old and doesn’t change the failure probability
of the system. An imperfect repair is a partial repair
between the perfect repair and the minimal repair. And to
the replacement actions, there are preventive replacement
that can be adopted before system fails and failure
replacement, respectively. Since 1960s, many researches
have been studied on the preventive maintenance policy,
and lots of well-known models have been built. Barlow
and Hunter (1960)[1] first proposed a periodic replacement
policy with “minimal repair”, this basic model has been
generalized by many experts into other complex
situations. A ( t ,T ) policy (t < T ) with consideration of
breakdown cost was proposed by Nishida and Tahara
(1974)[2]. In their studies, they proved that the optimality
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of the ( t ,T ) policy and provided a computational
algorithm for this ( t ,T ) policy under the long-term
average cost criterion[2, 3]. Tilquin and Cleroux (1975)[4]
added some limiting factors besides the original
replacement cost such as adjusting cost of machine, and
proved that the optimal replacement time point was the
one and only. And Boland (1982) proposed a repair cost
that changed along with system’s age, and built a periodic
replacement maintenance model with the objective for
minimization of the long-term average cost rate[5]. Then, a
preventive maintenance model based on system’s age and
number of failures was proposed by Nakagawa (1984)[6].
But those abovementioned models had simplifications,
most of them were only focused on the repair or
replacement cost without considering the operation cost.
Therefore, we propose the health index (HI) to describe
the status of deteriorating system and the dynamic
operation cost is corresponded to the health index to
satisfy more practical requirements. More, although those
maintenance models considered that the system would
recover after repair actions, they didn’t take it as a
dynamic variable which should change along with the
system’s status. So we suppose the dynamic recovery
ability related to the health index to present that if the
general repair is adopted, how better the system could
return back. Then, the upper bound of number of failures
is limited to avoid the impossible case “No replacement
with infinite times of repair”.
Finally, the discrete Markov Process is presented to
describe the repairable deteriorating system. Based on the
( t ,T ) policy (t < T ) proposed by Nishida and Tahara, a
* *
new dynamic preventive maintenance ( t , T ) policy to
find the minimal long-term average cost rate is proposed
with consideration of variable operation cost and the
health index: if failure occurs when the system is healthier
*
than health index t , general repair is used; if failure
* *
occurs when the system’s health is between t and T ,
failure replacement is used; if the system is still operating
*
when the system’s health reaches at T , preventive
replacement should be used.
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th
represents the failure probability of the ( k + 1) failure
at the next time point if the system remains operating at
time point t ;
④ P0 ((t , 2k ), (t + 1, 2k )) = 1 − rt , k =0,1,2,3,... .

III. MODEL FORMULATION

A. Assumptions

1) The independent system is studied.

2) A new system is installed at the beginning,.
3) System’s failure is stochastic, but can be described
by a certain failure function.
Fig.1 Flow Chart of Dynamic Preventive Maintenance 4) The older system is, the more number of failures is.
5) The failure can be inspected at once when it happens.
II. MARKOV DECISION 6) Repair or replacement time can be negligible.
7) System’s failure probability after replacement is the
Assume that general repair can shift back the failure same as before.
probability to remove the most recent runtime sojourn,
and the decision of the repair or replacement actions can B. Notations
be formulated as a discrete Markov Decision Process with
time point and system’s state as two elements of the two- We assume that
dimensional state space[7]. C (( t , q ), u ) is the cost that when the system is at state
During the infinite time horizon, either general repair or ( t , q ) , the maintenance action u is chosen;
failure replacement is adopted when the system fails; and C is the general repair cost;
keep operating or preventive replacement is adopted when r
the system is under operation. Thus, there’re always two C
pr
is the preventive replacement cost;
actions available at anytime, we suppose the maintenance
actions space defined as U = {0,1, 2} , where C
fr
is the failure replacement cost;
u = 0 keep operating;
C (t ) is the operation cost when system’s health index
u = 1 repair; o n
u = 2 failure replacement / preventive replacement. is t n .
Assume q denotes system state when good or failed: To satisfy the actual manufacturing process, we suppose
when q is even, the system is operating; when q is odd, C ≤C ≤ C , C −C ≤ C and the operation cost
the system fails. It’s obvious that the Markov matrix can r pr fr fr pr r
be denoted with this two-dimensional state space: C (t ) is a nondegressive function corresponding to the
o n
S = {(t , q ) : 0 ≤ t < ∞ , q ∈ {0,1, 2, ...}}
health index with an upper bound. Thus, at any time point,
where t is time point and q is the system’s state, when when system is at state ( t , q ) and available maintenance
q = 2 × k ( k = 0,1, 2, 3, ...) , it means that the system has action is u , there exist:
experienced failures of a total number k and now is
① C (( t , q ), u ) = C (( t , 2 k ), 0) = Co (t n ) ;
operating; when q = 2 × k − 1( k = 0,1, 2, 3, ...) , it means that
the system is at its k
th
failure and remains disable. ② C (( t , q ), u ) = C (( t , 2 k ), 2) = C pr ;
' ' ③ C (( t , q ), u ) = C (( t , 2 k − 1),1) = Cr ;
Suppose Pu (( t , q ), ( t , q )) as the conditional probability
' ' ④ C (( t , q ), u ) = C (( t , 2 k − 1), 2) = C fr .
from the state ( t , q ) to state ( t , q ) , and the conditional
probability of three maintenance actions at the discrete
points {0,∆s ,2 ∆s ,3∆s ,...} are defined as below,: C. Preventive Maintenance policy
① P1 ((t , 2k − 1), (t , 2k )) = 1 ， k =1,2,3,... ;
Assume that Cn (t , q ) is the long-term average cost
② P2 ((t , q ), (0, 0)) = 1 , where (0, 0) represents that a new
rate after n planning time cycles from state ( t , q ) , the
system starts; optimal preventive maintenance model of the system can
③ P0 ((t , 2k ), (t + 1, 2k + 1)) = rt , k =0,1,2,3,... , where rt be inferred as below:

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① System under operation, the optimal action that brings c

F ( x ) =1− e− ( t / β ) (6)
much less cost between keep operating and preventive
replacement is chosen. The failure conditional probability is:
c
C (t , q ) = C (t , 2 k )
n n F(t+1)-F(t) e− (t +1/ β )
r =
t
=1−
c
(7)
1-F(t)
= min{C (t ) + r C
0 n t n −1
( t + 1, 2 k + 1) (1) e − (t / β )
Then, data of the statistic analyzed by Feldman et al.
+ (1 − r )C (t + 1, 2 k ); C + C (0, 0)}
t n −1 pr n from an aluminum factory is adopted, and it was also
where k =0,1,2,3,... and Cn (0, 0) denotes the cost when the referred in the original study of Chen and Feldman[7]
where two experts did not consider the variable recovery
system is renewed and starts from a brand-new state: ability of general repair and supposed only one time for
C (0, 0) = C (0) + r C (1,1) + (1 − r ) C (1, 0) (2) repair opportunity. The relevant data is:
n 0 0 n −1 0 n −1
② System under failure, the optimal action that brings C = 80000 ≤ C = 100000 , because the experienced
pr fr
much less cost between repair and failure replacement is
chosen. ratio is 2 ≤ C fr / Cr ≤ 10 , Cr = 30000 is feasible.
C (t , q ) = C (t , 2 k − 1) C (t ) = 1560 / week , t ≤ 26 ;
n n o n n
(3)
= min{C + C (t , 2 k ); C + C (0, 0)} C (t ) = 1497.6＋2.4t , t > 26 .
r n fr n o n n n
From (1), it can be inferred that once the cost of keep Suppose three times for repair is available to avoid
operating is more than the cost of preventive replacement, the case of “No replacement with infinite times of repair”,
this current time point is just the optimal preventive so the failure replacement is a must when the 4th failure
* occurs. With data analyzing and experienced simulation,
replacement time point T under this n planning time
cycles. Also, (2) denotes that once the cost of repair is function H (t n ) = 30 − 0.08t n is supposed to represent the
more than the cost of failure replacement, the current time recovery ability, and health index t n is:
*
point is just the optimal failure replacement time point t
t = 0.76t , 0 ≤ t ≤ 220
under this n planning time cycles. n
Because we have mentioned that the system would t = 0.98t − 48.4 , 220 < t ≤ 350
n
shift back to a healthier status after general repair with
t = 1.24t − 139.4 , t > 350 .
variable recovery ability, function H ( t n ) is introduced to n
To the Weibull failure probability function, there has
describe this recovery ability corresponding to the health a mean value 188 weeks and a standard deviation value
index. Thus, when the system has general repair at health
64.7 weeks with the parameters β = 210.6 , c = 3.2 .
index t n , it can be healthier of H ( t n ) time units. Assume that the probable life of system is beyond a
So the above preventive maintenance policy should reliability of 10−4 , the failure probability function F(x) is
be modified as below: inducted to 0.000103532 at 421st week and 0.0000965396
C (t , q ) = C (t , 2 k )
n n at 422nd week. Therefore, the probable life of system is
422 weeks, and it is feasible that a time of 25 years is used
= min{C (t ) + r C
0 n t n −1
( t + 1, 2 k + 1) (4) to simulate as the infinite time horizon. So the planning
+ (1 − r )C (t + 1, 2 k ); C + C (0, 0)} time cycle is n = 52 × 25 = 1300 weeks.
t n −1 pr n By the computation based on preventive maintenance
Where k =0,1,2,3,... and Cn (0, 0) doesn’t change. model discussed in III, we can have results in Tab.1. In
Fig.2, the “Optimal Decision for maintenance” policy is
C (t , q ) = C ( t , 2 k − 1) presented clearly. The preventive replacement points are
n n
(5) convergent after the 520th week of the planning time
= min{C + C (t − H ( t ), 2 k ); C + C (0, 0)}
r n n fr n cycle, which are convergent to 209, 205 and 201 after the
1144th week. The failure replacement points are
convergent to 180, 179 and 172 after the 728th week. It
IV. A NUMERICAL EXAMPLE can be inferred that if the planning time cycle is much
longer, all the preventive and failure replacement points
We adopt Weibull distribution that is widely used to will be both convergent to some stable points, which
describe the failure probability of mechanical and strongly supports the optimal dynamic preventive
electronical products to present the failure probability * *
maintenance ( tn , Tn ) policy. Finally, this optimal
function in this preventive maintenance model. It is
obvious that system’s accumulative failure function is: dynamic preventive maintenance policy is:

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t = 180, t = 179, t = 172, T = 209, T = 209, T = 205, T = 201

1 3 5 0 2 4 6 optimal preventive maintenance policy
Fig.3 is the result of Chen and Feldman’s study that
supposes the system could only return to recent status

repair/repalcement point(week)
240
before failure occurs and the corresponding t and T are T0
220
convergent to the same points. It is obvious that this new t1
optimal dynamic preventive maintenance policy is much 200 T2
more practical and provides a better maintenance to the 180 t3
repairable deteriorating system. T4
160
t5
140
optimal preventive maintenance policy T6
120
104 312 520 728 936 1144 1300
250 planning cycle (week)
repair/repalcement point(week)

230 T0
Fig.3 Optimal Decision for Maintenance of Chen and Feldman
t1
210 T2
t3 V. CONCLUSION
190 T4
t5 This paper studies an optimal dynamic preventive
170 T6 maintenance policy with health index based on ( t ,T )
policy for the repairable deteriorating system subject to
150
104 312 520 728 936 1144 1300
failures.
But there have some assumptions for simplification,
planning cycle (week)
such as the general repair cost Cr that is supposed to be
Fig.2 Optimal Decision for Maintenance an invariable value may be changed along with number of
repairs and system’s status. Actually, Cr might be higher
TABLE 1 when number of repairs increases or the system gets
OPTIMAL DECISION of REPAIR/REPLACE unhealthier. Further more, when general repair is adopted,
Year Week T0 t1 T2 t3 T4 t5 T6 the system may not return back to such better status but
2 104 176 193 170 183 166 169 159 get worse because of the repair risk. And those points
haven’t been considered in this study, so the optimal
4 208 231 176 228 176 228 171 225
dynamic preventive maintenance policy can be further
6 312 189 188 191 182 187 181 181 discussed for such more complicated situations.
8 416 225 177 225 177 220 170 214
10 520 197 183 199 180 194 175 194
12 624 220 179 219 177 215 170 209
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper is financially supported by National
14 728 203 181 205 180 200 173 197 Science Foundation of China. Grant No: 70671065.
16 832 213 180 210 179 207 171 204
18 936 208 181 209 180 204 172 200
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[2] Kijima, M., “Some results for repairable systems with
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[3] Ohnishi, M., and University, O., “Optimal minimal-repair
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[4] Tilquin, C., and Cleroux, R., “Periodic replacement with
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[5] Boland, P.J., and Proschan, F., “Periodic replacement with

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