IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. R-27, NO.

1, APRIL 1978

39

Optimal Reliability Allocation Under Preventive Maintenance Schedule

T. Inagaki, Student Member IEEE K. Inoue, Member IEEE H. Akashi, Member IEEE
Key Words-Reliability allocation, Preventive maintenance, Nonlinear

3. PROBLEM FORMULATION
Assumptions
1) The system has m components having s-independent failure mechanisms. and has an IFR Weibull failure distribution.

programming

2) Each component is either up or down at any time

Reader AidsPurpose: Widen state of the art

A Special Math needed: Nonlinear programming techniques Ri(t) - I R - exp[-(Xit) '],[3> Results useful to: Reliability and maintainability theoreticians

3) The reliability of component i over the time interval [O,t] is given by (1) when maintenance is not performed.
(1)

policy. is possible for the as-good-as-new repair. 8) Replacements are instantaneous and there is no queue for replacements. We take as an objective function the probability (mission reliability) that a system operates successfully throughout the planning interval [0,T] under PM sched1. INTRODUCTION ule. Under above assumptions, the optimal replacement There are two major ways to attain high reliability of schedule is periodic for each component [1]. The optimization problem is stated as follows for a given set of a component: 1) produce a component by using highly ., Pm). attain high reliability by pershape parameters 83 developed technology, 2) forming adequate maintenance. The cost of developing new technology to produce reliable enough components Problem 1 Select XA(A ......., Am) and n (n1. ,nm) to might be enormous. Therefore these two ways should minimize be combined by taking the current level of technology, J1(X,n) Z [X8 (n1 + 1)t-iT6i] maintenance cost, and so on into account. Details are given in the Supplement [1]. subject to the constraints li(ni+ 1)[g1(Xi) + C1i] % Ctotal, (2) 2. NOTATION 0 < XiL < Xi Aiu, and
-

Summary & Conclusions-This paper considers a series system of components with time-dependent reliability and gives a new formulation of an optimal reliability allocation problem where an optimal preventive maintenance (PM) schedule is determined simultaneously. The importance ofthisformulationisshownin comparisonwithaconventional formulation where PM schedule is not taken into account. The optimization problem becomes a nonlinear mixed-integer programming problem. A simple approximate solution algorithm is given on the basis of a nonlinear programming (NLP) algorithm. The procedure is illustrated by use of a numerical example. Though we restrict our attention to the case where a preventive replacement is adopted as a PM policy, a similar discussion

4) The development of technology can decrease Xi but has no influence on f3i. (This is a tractable assumption rather than a realistic one for technology-reliability
relation.) 5) Every fresh component starts from a perfect state.

function of class

6) gi(Xi) is

monotonically decreasing and

C2 in the half-open interval (XiL, v

convex

As

Xi-XiL, gi(Ai) -> +co.

7) A preventive replacement is adopted as a PM

pa, Xi Weibull shape & scale parameters of comni

Xwu g~(X1)
C12

XIL

Ctotai

(3) ni : nonnegative integer ponent i 4. SOLUTION METHOD: number of replacement carried out on comA NONLINEAR PROGRAMMING APPROACH ponent i specified greatest lower bound of Xi We treat n1, i E m, as being continuous and denote specified least upper bound of As production cost of component i with Xs for given them as nC, i E m, to avoid confusion. Problem 1 becomes NLP problem /3i ~~~~~~~~~~a (Problem 1') with respect to X and ,n%). We obtain another NLP problem installation cost for component ijc-(1 ~.. (Problem 1") with respect to X when n in Problem I is total allowable cost

0018-9529/78/0400-003 9 $00.75 ) 1978 IEEE

40

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON RELIABILITY, VOL. R-27, NO. 1, APRIL 1978

fixed at some point. The solution procedure is as follows; Table 1 Optimum Points of Problem I and Problem 2 Step 1: Solve Problem 1' to obtain optimum points A and nc-(nl, ...... , mc). Mission 1 2 3 4 Step 2: For every i E m, round nioff to the nearest component Reliability integer ni*. Step 3: Step 3: Fx nPoblem I1 att n*-fnl* (n,, Fix n in Problem , , Problem .................1 0. 1066 0.1125 0.0869 0.0912 in n* nmXi* flm*), and then solve Problem I" to obtain an optimum point 6 0.8637 6 4m) , - * .\ *, * This solution procedure gives only local optimum Problem 2 0.100009 0.100010 0.080006 0.080013 points of Problem 1 since Problem 1' is a nonconvex 0.8195 Xi* programming problem. In the following section, we solve Problem 1' and Problem 1" via an augmented Lagrangian method [2] which has some attractive properties on nu6. ACKNOWLEDGMENT merical stability and convergence compared with usual penalty methods and classical Lagrangian methods. The authors appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions of the Editor and referees. 5. ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE 7. REFERENCES
.

We adopt (4) as a mathematical model for

gi(Xi)

ai{log1o [bi/(Xi XiL)]}li

-

g1(Xi).
(4)

[1]

plement. For current ordering information, see inside rear cover

ASIS-NAPS; Microfiche Publications; PO Box 3513, Grand Central Station; New York, NY 10017 USA. D.A.Pierre, M.J.Lowe, Mathematical Programming via Aug-

Supplement: NAPS document No. 03088-B; 9 pages in this Sup-

The 4-component series system is considered. Let Ctotai=104, T=1, and CIi=20, ai= 102, bi= 1, di=2 for any i E= 4. The other parameters are as follows;
component 1 2 3 4 component_________________________________2______3______4__

of a current issue. Order NAPS document No. 03088, 21 pages.

[2]

mented Lagrangians-An Introduction with Computer Programs, Addison-Wesely, 1975.

pi A-L

xiu

1.2 0.1 0.5

1.3 0.1 0.5

1.2 0.08 0.5

1.3 0.08
0.5

A local optimum point of Problem 1 is shown in Table 1. The extreme case where every ni in Problem 1 is fixed at zero, we get an optimal reliability allocation problem without PM schedule, i.e.

T. Inagaki, Dept. of Precision Mechanics; Faculty of Engineering; Kyoto University; Kyoto 606 JAPAN T. Inagaki was born in Kyoto, Japan on 1952 Mar 29. He received the BS and MS degrees in Precision Mechanics from Kyoto University in 1974 and 1976, respectively. He is now working for the PhD degree in the field of reliability design and maintenance schedule optimization for

y K. Inoue; Dept. of Precision Mechanics; Faculty of Engineering; Kyoto University; Kyoto 606 JAPAN
For biography see vol R-23, 1974 Apr., p 33.

Problem 2 Select X to minimize J2(X) - iA8irii subject to the constraints (2) and li[gi(Xi) + Cli] < Ctotaw We can obtain the global optimum point of J2(X) since Problem 2 is a convex programming problem. The global optimum point of Problem 2 is also shown in Table 1 for
the global optimum of Problem 1 is not available, we may find a local optimum of it which is better than the global

H. Akashi; Dept. of Precision Mechanics; Faculty of Engineering;

Kyoto University; Kyoto 606 JAPAN

cheglomparison.pta 1fshowsem

that evn

aain

casle, wherey

optimum of Problem 2.

formulation of Problem 1 to that of Problem 2 in the

in is s analyzed and we have shown the superiority of the Supplement [1].

Sensitivity of mission reliability with respect to changes

H. Akashi obtained his BS degree in Engineering from Kyoto University, Japan in 1944. He spent one year from 1953 to 1954 at Brown University in the graduate school. He taught at Ritsumeikan University and Doshisha University during the period from 1955 to 1968, and is presently a Professor at Kyoto University. He obtained PhD in Engineering from Kyoto University in 1960. He was a visiting Professor at the University of Kansas from 1963 to 1965. His main field of interest is the theory of control. He is currently a vice-president of the Japan Association of Automatic Control Engineers. He is the author of a book on control Manuscript received 1977 Apr 8; revised 1977 Aug 12, 1977 Dec 1.

gi