On determining a non-periodic preventive maintenance schedule using the failure rate threshold for a repairable system

Maintenance activities are regarded as a key part of the repairable deteriorating system because they maintain the equipment in good condition. In practice, many maintenance policies are used in engineering fields to reduce unexpected failures and slow down the deterioration of the system. However, in traditional maintenance policies, maintenance activities have often been assumed to be performed at the same time interval, which may result in higher operational costs and more system failures. Thus, this study presents two non-periodic preventive maintenance (PM) policies for repairable deteriorating systems, employing the failure rate of the system as a conditional variable. In the proposed PM models, the failure rate of the system was restored via the failure rate reduction factors after imperfect PM activities. Operational costs were also considered, which increased along with the operating time of the system and the frequency of PM activities to reflect the deterioration process of the system. A numerical example was provided to illustrate the proposed PM policy. The results showed that PM activities performed at a low failure rate threshold slowed down the degradation of the system and thus extended the system lifetime. Moreover, when the operational cost was considered in the proposed maintenance scheme, the system replacement was more cost-effective than frequent PM activities in the severely degraded system.