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Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-

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Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component

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A. S. B. Tam , W. M. Chan & J. W. H. Price
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 Production Planning & Control,
Vol. 17, No. 8, December 2006, 769–779

Optimal maintenance intervals for a

multi-component system
A. S. B. TAM, W. M. CHAN* and J. W. H. PRICE
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cooperative Research Centre for Integrated Engineering Asset
Management (CIEAM), Monash University, Building 31, Clayton Campus,
Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 15:16 30 June 2013

In the manufacturing industry, preventive maintenance (PM) is carried out to minimise the
probability of plant unexpected breakdown. Planned PM is preferred as disruption to
operation is then minimised. Suggested PM intervals are normally prepared by the original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs), however due to the multifaceted relationship between
operating context and production requirement for different plants, it is unlikely that these
suggested intervals as prescribed by the OEMs are optimal. Reliability, budget and breakdown
outages cost are some of the critical factors that will affect the calculation of optimal
maintenance intervals. Maintenance managers are required to determine optimal maintenance
intervals with the above different requirements set by management. In this paper three models
are proposed to calculate optimal maintenance intervals for multi-component system in a
factory subjected to minimum required reliability, maximum allowable budget and minimum
total cost. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the application and usefulness of the
proposed models.

Keywords: Preventive maintenance interval; Multi-component system; Reliability; Budget;

Breakdown outages cost

1. Introduction considered by the OEM and the actual outcomes may

not satisfy plant requirements.
Most physical assets deteriorate with time and Reliability is a critical factor that will influence the
operation, and they require maintenance in order to estimation of plant productivity (Freiheit and Hu
uphold the safety and reliability of the system so that the 2002). Maintenance intervals suggested by the OEM
system can continue to operate and produce products. may not always satisfy the plant requirement. For
Reliability, budget and the outages costs are three example, the maintenance interval suggested might
critical issues that will affect preventive maintenance give a reliability of 90%, but a production process will
intervals in the manufacturing industry. The system require a reliability of 95% or more to satisfy the
purchased from the original equipment manufacturer company requirement. The question thus becomes:
(OEM) will normally be accompanied by a recom- What is the optimal maintenance interval at this given
mended maintenance schedule and perhaps a guaran- reliability?
teed reliability at a given operating condition. However, Another issue is the budget. Budget is often deter-
these suggested intervals may not be optimal because the mined in advance, usually a year earlier, by the financial
operating conditions may be very different from those department where the plant maintenance managers are
given a fixed amount of money to spend on main-
tenance. The level of the budget is normally related to
*Corresponding author. Email: wmcha4@rocketmail.com the previous year’s budget and not to the actual
Production Planning and Control
ISSN 0953–7287 print/ISSN 1366–5871 online ß 2006 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/09537280600834452
 770 A. S. B. Tam et al.
operating conditions of the plant. How to best allocate
this money so that the return in terms of reliability or
other defined benefits is maximised becomes one of the
most critical questions encountered by maintenance
managers.
Furthermore, unexpected breakdowns are an undesir-
able issue in the manufacturing industry as the operator
will suffer a penalty cost. If the breakdown outages cost
is known, then in this study, the total cost will be the
sum of maintenance cost and expected breakdown
outages cost. There exists an optimal set of maintenance
intervals where the total cost is minimised. The optimal
set of maintenance interval is very much dependent on
the downtime cost.
In this paper three models are proposed for main-
tenance managers to determine the optimal maintenance
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intervals for a multi-component system in a factory
where maintenance can be done during regular down-
times subjected to a minimum required reliability, a
maximum allowable budget and minimum total cost.
The glossaries and notations used in this paper are given
as follows:
Reliability R(t) The probability that a physical
system operates properly under
designed specification.
Unreliability F(t) The opposite of reliability, and
is defined mathematically as
1
R(t).
Weibull Distribution The Weibull distribution was
invented by Waloddi Weibull
in 1937 (Abernethy 1993). In
this paper, the two-parameter
Weibull is used. It is defined as:
"
 #
t 
RðtÞ ¼ exp
, rigid maintenance schedule where intervals are pre-


where: t is the time,  is the shape parameter,
is the
characteristic life.
CM,i Cost of maintenance for
component i.
CM,i,n Total cost for maintenance for
component i in a given year n.
CM,n Total cost for maintenance in
year n.
CBD Breakdown outages cost.
CDT Downtime cost per hour.
Ii Maintenance interval for
component i.
i Weibull shape parameter for
component i.

i Weibull scale parameter for
component i.
Y Yearly operation hours or
cycles.
R(t)REQ Required reliability.
R(t)System System reliability.
B Budget ($/year).
i Positive integer.
T Desirable constant for realistic
maintenance time set.
CTotal Total cost of maintenance and
expected downtime cost for a
given year.
2. A brief literature review
Over the past decades, substantial research has been
done on maintenance strategies and mathematical
modelling. Wang (2002) conducted a survey on various
maintenance policies of deteriorating systems and stated
that maintenance policies had become more and more
general and complicated which made implementation in
practice very difficult. The study also suggested that
most optimal maintenance models in the literature use
the optimisation criterion: minimising cost but ignored
reliability. Wang’s research pointed out that for a multi-
component system minimising cost did not necessarily
imply maximising system reliability and to achieve the
best operating performance, optimal maintenance policy
needs to consider both cost and reliability
simultaneously.
A report by the IEE/PES Task Force (2001) on the
impact of maintenance strategies on reliability presented
a summary on the most frequently used maintenance
strategies. The report suggested that simplest plan is a
defined and carried out without change, which was also
the frequently used concept. The report stated that
mathematical models are needed to determine how long
the application of maintenance would extend the
lifetime of a component. Motivated by Wang’s research
and the IEE report, this paper proposes three mathe-
matical models that consider both cost and reliability
simultaneously.
Many maintenance and replacement models have
been created. Some work includes non-exponential
approach to availability modelling by Jacobson and
San Ram Arora (1995), Crow non-homogeneous
Poisson process model with simulation in failure rate
predictions by Roberts and Mann (1993), minimising
cost rate by selection of appropriate intervals for
inspections and replacements for a single unit model
 Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component system 771

Figure 1. An example of a multi-component system.

by Vaurio (1999), the Bayesian methods of analysis
proposed by Percy and Kobbacy (2000) and the
branching algorithm method that optimises cost
proposed by Jayabalan and Chaudhuri (1992) which
determines the optimal number of maintenance before
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This research considers cost and reliability simulta-
neously and proposes simple models, which can be
adopted by the maintenance managers/engineers and
implemented into the shop floor easily, to determine the
optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component

each replacement. system.

Artana and Ishida (2002) had developed a method for
determining the maintenance intervals for components
of a liquid ring primer of a ship’s bilge system in the
3. Optimisation of maintenance intervals
wear-out phase. Spreadsheet technique was used for the
model optimisation and Microsoft Excel Solver was
In this section, the models developments for the
applied to solve for the optimal schedule with respect to
calculation of the optimal maintenance intervals will
minimum total cost. This method demonstrates spread-
be presented. Model 1 will be used for achieving a
sheet modelling is one option which is easy to use and is
minimum required reliability and model 2 will be used to
readily available.
calculate maintenance intervals with a budget con-
Many of the models which have been developed are
straint. Model 3 will be used to calculate the optimal
complex, making implementation very inconvenient as
set of maintenance intervals with minimum total cost.
suggested by the report of IEE/PES Task Force (2001)
Figure 1 illustrates a multi-component system. A
and Wang (2002). In fact, managers and engineers
multi-component system normally contains components
always tend to avoid complex mathematics and models
connected in both series and parallel. Parallel compo-
requiring data which are often difficult to obtain. Usher
nents can be treated as another sub-system connected in
et al. (1998) proposed a model for planning future PM
series where their combined reliability is treated the
for a system subjected to increasing failure rate using
same as other series component. For example,
random search, genetic algorithm and branch-and-
see figure 1 where the combined reliability of compo-
bound approaches such that the net present value of
nents 4a and 4b gives the reliability of component 4,
future cost is minimised. However, Usher et al.’s work
which can be calculated by R(t)4 ¼ 1
F(t)4aF(t)4b ¼
did not account for potential breakdown outages cost.
R(t)4a þ R(t)4b
R(t)4a  R(t)4b.
Since the unreliability of a system is the probability of a
In this paper, each component is assumed to follow a
system not working, by giving breakdown outages a cost
Weibull distribution with known beta () and etta (
)
(such as dollar per hour), the expected outages cost can
values. The maintenance cost CM,i (the cost of a
be calculated at that given reliability. In another words,
specified maintenance activity) is known, and the
the optimal maintenance intervals will vary depending
objective is to minimise the total maintenance cost
on the breakdown outages cost. Some previous works
subjected to different management constraints.
include Vaurio (1999) and Ben-Daya (1999) but further
research is required to take into account breakdown
outages cost and optimal maintenance intervals during
3.1 Optimisation model 1: Minimising cost with
the PM planning. Another problem is that solutions
a required reliability
provided by these models are optimal but often not
realistic since one cannot perform maintenance at System reliability is an important parameter in the
anytime (regular periods tend to be preferred) and estimation of productivity (Freiheit and Hu 2002). A
most models neglected the fact that the amount of multi-component system is considered where the
maintenance that can be done for the year is limited by objective is to minimise total cost at the required
the budget. system reliability.
 772 A. S. B. Tam et al.

The total maintenance cost for a given year can be total cost, which in this paper, is the sum of maintenance
expressed as: cost and expected breakdown outages cost. Since the
unreliability of a system is the probability of a system
Minimise:
not working, by giving breakdown outages a cost (such
X CM,i Y as dollar per hour), the expected breakdown outages
CM,n ¼ ð1Þ
i
Ii cost can be calculated at that given reliability. As a
result, the breakdown outages cost is the product of
Subjected to: yearly operational rate, the downtime cost per unit time
RðtÞSystem  RðtÞREQ ð2Þ and un-reliability for the year, which can be written as:

where Ii ¼ iT, Ii  0, T ¼ any desirable constant for
realistic maintenance time step, such as 1000 hours, 7
days, 6 months etc. i is any positive integer. Since
"
 #
t i
RðtÞi ¼ exp


i
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CBD ¼ CDT  ð1
RðtÞSystem Þ  Y ð5Þ
The expected total cost is considered to be the sum of
the expected breakdown outages cost and maintenance
cost. The objective is to solve for the optimal set of
maintenance intervals such that the total cost is
minimised. Hence, the optimisation model can be

the reliability for a component at any time given its expressed as:
maintenance interval (I) is Minimise:
"
 #
Ii i CTotal ¼ CBD þ CM,n
RðtÞi ¼ exp
:

i X Y
¼ CDT  ð1
RðtÞSystem Þ  Y þ CM,i 
i
Ii
Hence,
"
 # ð6Þ
Y Ii i
RðtÞSystem ¼ exp
: where Ii ¼ iT, Ii  0, T ¼ any desirable constant for
i

i
realistic maintenance time step. i is any positive integer.

3.2 Optimisation model 2: Maximising

reliability at a given budget 4. Model analysis
In this section, the same multi-component system is
considered but the objective and constraint have The system reliability is a product of all component
changed. The objective is to determine the best set of reliability in series (parallel components can be con-
maintenance intervals for best reliability result at a given verted to a sub-system reliability and then treated the
budget. The optimisation model, for this instance, can same as another series component). Thus different
be written as: combinations of maintenance intervals will result in
different reliability and cost results. Parameters like 
Maximise: and
are component failure characteristics that we
"
 # cannot control unless a better component is purchased,
Y Ii i
RðtÞSystem ¼ exp
ð3Þ the governing parameter is then the required reliability
i

i and the component maintenance cost.
To obtain higher reliability, the interval (I) must be
Subjected to: decreased, but to obtain a lower cost, I must be
X CM,i Y increased. These two conflicting objectives have an

B0 ð4Þ
Ii optimal dependent on the constraint. For example, at a
i
required reliability the maintenance interval has to be
where Ii ¼ iT, Ii  0, T ¼ any desirable constant for less than a certain value. Figure 2 demonstrates the
realistic maintenance time step. i is any positive integer. relationship among the maintenance cost, reliability and
maintenance interval.
By examining the two equations (shown in figure 2)
3.3 Optimisation model 3: Minimum
for cost and reliability, there is a optimal maintenance
expected total cost
interval, I, to satisfy the PM objective subject to a given
This section considers the same multi-component system set of constraint (either reliability or budget). At a
as described in figure 1. Model 3 aims to optimise the system level, the total cost is the sum of all component
 Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component system 773

maintenance can be done at every multiple of 1000

Figure 2. Yearly maintenance cost and reliability versus
maintenance interval.
Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 15:16 30 June 2013
hours. In this example, having eight possible intervals
and two components, the total possible combinations of
intervals will be 82 ¼ 64 combinations. Tables 1 and 2
tabulate the reliability and maintenance cost for all 64
combinations and figure 3 plots all these combinations
using the cost as the x-axis and reliability as the y-axis.
Table 1 highlights all possible combinations for system
reliability to be more the 90% and table 2 shows that
there is a global optimum location with a minimum cost
for reliability of at least 90%.
It should be noted that for a two-component system,
entries for table 1 and 2 can be calculated by equations
(1) and (2), where i ¼ 2. For table 1, the reliability can be
calculated as R(I1)  R(I2) ¼ R(t)System. For table 2, the
cost is equal to

cost and system reliability is the product of individual

CM,1 Y CM,2 Y
component reliability. Hence, it can be proved that there CM,T ¼ þ :
is a global optimum set of maintenance interval for I1 I2
achieving a given reliability or budget for a system. Optimal total cost is modelled in model 3 where the
For illustrative purpose that there is a global objective is to solve for the set of maintenance interval
optimum set of maintenance interval, a system with that will result in a minimum total cost. By carefully
two components is considered and it is assumed that the examining the two formulas for breakdown outages cost
planning intervals are 1000 hours to 8000 hours, and and maintenance cost, equations (1) and (5), there is an

Figure 3. Reliability and cost.

Table 1. Exhaustive table for two components system: reliability.

Component 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Maintenance intervals 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

2 1000 0.9956 0.9954 0.9950 0.9939 0.9920 0.9888 0.9841 0.9773

2 2000 0.9824 0.9822 0.9818 0.9808 0.9789 0.9757 0.9710 0.9643
2 3000 0.9608 0.9607 0.9602 0.9592 0.9574 0.9543 0.9497 0.9431
2 4000 0.9313 0.9312 0.9308 0.9298 0.9280 0.9251 0.9206 0.9143
2 5000 0.8948 0.8947 0.8943 0.8934 0.8916 0.8888 0.8845 0.8784
2 6000 0.8521 0.8520 0.8516 0.8507 0.8491 0.8464 0.8423 0.8365
2 7000 0.8043 0.8042 0.8038 0.8030 0.8014 0.7989 0.7950 0.7895
2 8000 0.7524 0.7523 0.7520 0.7512 0.7497 0.7474 0.7437 0.7386
 774 A. S. B. Tam et al.
Table 2. Exhaustive table for a two component system: cost.

Component 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Maintenance intervals 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000

2 1000 $184 000 $124 000 $104 000 $94 000 $88 000 $84 000 $81 143 $79 000
2 2000 $152 000 $92 000 $72 000 $62 000 $56 000 $52 000 $49 143 $47 000
2 3000 $141 333 $81 333 $61 333 $51 333 $45 333 $41 333 $38 476 $36 333
2 4000 $136 000 $76 000 $56 000 $46 000 $40 000 $36 000 $33 143 $31 000
2 5000 $132 800 $72 800 $52 800 $42 800 $36 800 $32 800 $29 943 $27 800
2 6000 $130 667 $70 667 $50 667 $40 667 $34 667 $30 667 $27 810 $25 667
2 7000 $129 143 $69 143 $49 143 $39 143 $33 143 $29 143 $26 286 $24 143
2 8000 $128 000 $68 000 $48 000 $38 000 $32 000 $28 000 $25 143 $23 000

Table 3. Input parameters for components and subsystem.

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Component Maintenance
(a) Maintenance cost and breakdown cost Component cost ($) cost ($) Beta Etta
Cost per year ($/Year)

1 30 000 15 000 3.5 25 000

2 20 000 8000 3.0 20 000
3 18 000 6000 2.5 15 000
4 15 000 6000 2.0 13 000

Maintenance interval (hours or cycles) optimal for the two. Figure 4 plots the two equations
Main Cost Breakdown Total
with cost per year against number of maintenance per
year with different downtime cost. The sum of the two
(b) Maintenance cost and breakdown cost equations gives the total cost as equation (6) and the
lowest point is the optimal cost maintenance level. The
Cost per year ($/Year)

shape of the curve is very much dependent on the hourly

downtime cost as with increasing downtime cost the
optimal interval is being shorten (shifting to the left),
because a higher reliability is needed.

5. Applications
Maintenance interval (hours or cycles)
Main Cost Breakdown Total Application of the three models will be illustrated in this
(c) Maintenance cost and breakdown cost section. A multi-component system as shown in figure 1
is considered with the assumed component cost, main-
Cost per year ($/Year)

tenance cost and the two Weibull parameters. The

paralleled components 4a and 4b shown in figure 1 are
considered as subsystem 4, with assumed subsystem
Weibull parameters. Y is 8000 hours/year. Table 3
shows the input parameters for all components and
subsystem.
Since the model described in this paper has proven to
Maintenance interval (hours or cycles) have an optimum solution, simple numerical techniques
Main Cost Breakdown Total
can be applied to obtain the values of Ii. Microsoft Excel
Solver is used because of its availability and ease of use.
Figure 4. (a), (b) and (c). Cost versus number of maintenance. The Excel Solver uses the generalised reduced gradient
(a) to (c): increasing breakdown outages cost). (GRG) algorithm, which is one of the most robust
 Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component system 775

non-linear programming methods and works well in
practice (Del Castillo and Montgomery, 1993).
5.1 Application for model 1
Consider a component system with the assumed cost
and Weibull parameters as illustrated in table 3. The
objective is to calculate the set maintenance intervals at
a required reliability of 95% with minimum cost. Using
spreadsheet tool Solver, the target cell is set to minimise
total maintenance cost (equation (4)) subjected to
reliability constrain of 95% (equation (2)) by changing
intervals (I). The resulting reliability is 0.95 with
maintenance cost of $77 888/year. Table 4 summarises
the results obtained by model 1.
By careful examination of the models reported in the
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overcome this common unrealistic assumption, a further
constraint is proposed here. In this example, the
constraint where maintenance intervals have to be a
multiple of 1000 is implemented (this multiple factor can
be adjusted by the maintenance mangers/engineers
based on different production context). Rounding up
and down the intervals will result in 24 ¼ 16 sets of
intervals. Exhaustive data are given in table 5 where the
best set of intervals will be selected. The best case is case
10 with resulting reliability of 95.14% and total
maintenance cost of $81142/year, where the optimal
maintenance intervals for component 1 to 4 are 7000,
4000, 2000 and 2000 respectively.
5.1.1 Model 1 sensitivity analysis. Model 1 aims to
minimise the cost per unit time that satisfies minimum

literature, one may discover that these assumed the
maintenance can be done at any time. However, this
assumption is not valid for many assets such as a
production plant where shutting down the plant at any
time for maintenance is unacceptable. In order to
Table 4. Solution for model 1: reliability as the management
constraint.
Required reliability 0.95
Component I R(t)System
1 6489 0.9911
2 4116 0.9913
3 2596 0.9876
4 1893 0.9790
0.9500
required system reliability. The model is tested with
different reliabilities where the respective intervals are
shown in table 6. The intervals decrease with increasing
required reliability. The cost per year versus system
reliability, however, has a polynomial relationship as
shown in figure 5. It is found that the higher the required
reliability, the higher the total maintenance cost.
5.2 Application for model 2
Consider the same multi-component system with the
Cost ($)
assumed cost and Weibull parameters as illustrated in
18 492 table 3. The objective is to calculate the set maintenance
15 549 intervals that will fully utilise a given annual budget
18 489 ($60 000) with maximum reliability in return. Using
25 356 spreadsheet tool Solver, the target cell is set to maximum
77 888
system reliability (equation (3)) and subjected to budget

Table 5. Exhaustive table for model 1: reliability as the management constraint.

Component maintenance interval

Cases 1 2 3 4 R(t)System Total cost ($)

1 6000 4000 2000 1000 0.973185 108 000

2 7000 4000 2000 1000 0.968483 105 142
3 6000 5000 2000 1000 0.965793 104 800
4 7000 5000 2000 1000 0.961126 101 942
5 6000 4000 3000 1000 0.962157 100 000
6 7000 4000 3000 1000 0.957508 97 142
7 6000 5000 3000 1000 0.954848 96 800
8 7000 5000 3000 1000 0.950234 93 942
9 6000 4000 2000 2000 0.956062 84 000
10 7000 4000 2000 2000 0.951442 81 142
11 6000 5000 2000 2000 0.9488 80 800
12 7000 5000 2000 2000 0.944215 77 942
13 6000 4000 3000 2000 0.945228 76 000
14 7000 4000 3000 2000 0.94066 73 142
15 6000 5000 3000 2000 0.938048 72 800
16 7000 5000 3000 2000 0.933515 69 942
 776 A. S. B. Tam et al.

constraint (equation (4)) by changing intervalsI. The
resulting cost of the first solver run is $60 000 with
reliability of 90.47%. Table 7 reports the finding of
model 2. Exhaustive table for this model is given in
table 8, where case 10 is the best case in this scenario
with resulting reliability of 90.00% and total main-
tenance cost of $59 800/year, where the optimal
maintenance intervals for component 1 to 4 are 8000,
5000, 3000 and 3000 hours respectively.
Table 10 provide the first set of interval and by using
the exhaustive table method, in table 11, case 7 is the
best case in this scenario with resulting maintenance cost
as $75 647/year, downtime cost as $123 333/year total
Table 7. Solution for model 2: budget as the management
constraint.
Budget 60 000

Component I R(t)System Cost ($)

5.2.1 Model 2 sensitivity analysis. Model 2 aims to
maximise the system reliability subjected to a given 1 7986.771 0.9817 15 024.85
yearly budgetary constraint. By varying the given 2 5203.658 0.9825 12 299.04
3 3390.947 0.9759 14 155.34
budget the resulting intervals are given in table 9. 4 2591.684 0.9610 18 520.78
Figure 6 plots the polynomial relationship between 0.9047 60 000.00
reliability versus given budget. It is shown that as the
Downloaded by [Monash University Library] at 15:16 30 June 2013

budget continues to increase the rate of system reliability

improvement reduces.
Table 8. Exhaustive table for model 2: budget as the
management constraint.
5.3 Application for model 3
Component maintenance interval
Model 3 considers the same multi-component system
with same parameters assumed in table 3. This model Total
Cases 1 2 3 4 R(t)System cost ($)
solves for the set of maintenance intervals that give an
optimal total cost. For this particular example, the 1 7000 5000 3000 2000 0.9335 69 942
downtime cost is assumed to be $500/hour. 2 8000 5000 3000 2000 0.9270 67 800
3 7000 6000 3000 2000 0.9229 67 809
4 8000 6000 3000 2000 0.9165 65 666
Table 6. Sensitivity analysis on model 1: cost and intervals 5 7000 5000 4000 2000 0.9160 65 942
with different required reliability. 6 8000 5000 4000 2000 0.9097 63 800
7 7000 6000 4000 2000 0.9057 63 809
Required reliability 8 8000 6000 4000 2000 0.8995 61 666
9 7000 5000 3000 3000 0.9063 61 942
Component 0.85 0.9 0.95 0.97 10 8000 5000 3000 3000 0.9000 59 800
11 7000 6000 3000 3000 0.8961 59 809
1 9000 8000 7000 6000 12 8000 6000 3000 3000 0.8898 57 666
2 7000 5000 4000 4000 13 7000 5000 4000 3000 0.8893 57 942
3 4000 3000 2000 2000 14 8000 5000 4000 3000 0.8833 55 800
4 3000 3000 2000 1000 15 7000 6000 4000 3000 0.8793 55 809
$/year 50 476 59 800 81 142 108 000 16 8000 6000 4000 3000 0.8733 53 666

Cost Vs Reliability
120000
100000
Cost ($/year)

80000
60000
40000
20000
0
0.84 0.86 0.88 0.9 0.92 0.94 0.96 0.98
Required system reliability

Figure 5. Cost versus required system reliability.

 Optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component system 777
Table 9. Sensitivity analysis on model 2: different allowable budget with the resulting system reliability and intervals.

Budget Component 1 Component 2 Component 3 Component 4 R(t)System Cost ($)

40 000 12 000 8000 5000 4000 0.740 39 600

50 000 9000 6000 5000 3000 0.840 49 600
60 000 6000 3000 2000 2000 0.900 59 800
70 000 5000 4000 3000 1000 0.930 69 943
80 000 5000 3000 3000 2000 0.945 76 000
90 000 6000 3000 2000 2000 0.960 89 333
100 000 5000 3000 2000 2000 0.964 93 333

R(t) Vs Budget
1
0.95
0.9
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R(t) system

0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 100000
Budget ($/year)

Figure 6. Reliability versus allowable budget per year.

Table 10. Solution for model 3: optimal total cost as the 6. Conclusion
management constraint.

Component I R(t)System Cost ($) This paper proposes simple models to assist managers of
small to medium production plants to determine the
1 4259 0.9979 28 175.63 optimal maintenance intervals for a multi-component
2 2564 0.9978 24 961.00
3 1511 0.9967 31 767.04 system with different managerial requirements, namely
4 1009 0.9939 47 571.85 minimum reliability requirement, maintenance budget
0.9866 13 2475.5 constraint and the minimum total cost. Since main-
Breakdown $53 212/year tenance cannot be done at any time, a method to obtain
outages cost a more realistic solution is provided by introducing the
Total cost $185 689/year constraint where maintenance interval has to be a
multiple of a given constant. This paper proposes an
approach that can provide a mean for maintenance
managers to adjust maintenance intervals for the asset
cost of $198 981/year, where the optimal maintenance they are managing, according to different company
intervals for component 1 to 4 are 4000, 3000, 2000 and requirements. Furthermore, the proposed models only
1000 hours respectively. required very few input parameters which can be
obtained or estimated easily.
For future research, one could model the downtime
5.3.1 Model 3 sensitivity analysis. Model 3 aims to of the components into the proposed models.
optimise the total cost per unit time by assuming a However, there are different aspects of downtime.
downtime cost. The model seeks to obtain the best set of For example, one is the actual downtime for
maintenance intervals for all components such that both maintenance and the other is the risk of system
the maintenance cost and expected downtime cost is downtime due to component failure. By considering
minimised. As the downtime cost increases the system the downtime of the components, one could develop
reliability increase as shown in table 12. model(s) to study the justification of purchasing
 778 A. S. B. Tam et al.
Table 11. Exhaustive table for model 3: optimal total cost as the management constraint.

Component maintenance interval

Breakdown Maintenance Total

Cases 1 2 3 4 R(t)System outages cost ($) cost ($) cost ($)

1 4000 2000 1000 1000 0.9903 42 294 158 000 200 294
2 5000 2000 1000 1000 0.9884 50 698 152 000 202 698
3 4000 3000 1000 1000 0.9879 52 583 147 333 199 917
4 5000 3000 1000 1000 0.9860 60 967 141 333 202 301
5 4000 2000 2000 1000 0.9850 65 412 134 000 199 412
6 5000 2000 2000 1000 0.9831 73 772 128 000 201 772
7 4000 3000 2000 1000 0.9827 75 647 123 333 198 981
8 5000 3000 2000 1000 0.9808 83 987 117 333 201 320
9 4000 2000 1000 2000 0.9729 118 615 134 000 252 615
10 5000 2000 1000 2000 0.9710 126 871 128 000 254 871
11 4000 3000 1000 2000 0.9706 128 724 123 333 252 057
12 5000 3000 1000 2000 0.9687 136 960 117 333 254 294
13 4000 2000 2000 2000 0.9677 141 327 110 000 251 327
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14 5000 2000 2000 2000 0.9658 149 539 104 000 253 539
15 4000 3000 2000 2000 0.9654 151 382 99 333 250 715
16 5000 3000 2000 2000 0.9635 159 574 93 333 252 908

Table 12. Sensitivity analysis on model 3: different downtime cost with system reliability and intervals.

Component maintenance interval

DTC ($/hour) 1 2 3 4 R(t)system Total cost ($)

200 4000 2000 2000 1000 0.981 150 928

400 4000 3000 2000 1000 0.983 183 852
500 4000 3000 2000 1000 0.983 198 981
600 4000 2000 1000 1000 0.990 208 753
800 5000 2000 1000 1000 0.990 225 670

new/better components. Decisions on whether to References

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dependent on economics analysis. Thus, the net
present value (NPV) analysis could be used as a
mean of economics analysis in future research.
Acknowledgements
The research is funded by the Cooperative Research
Centre for Engineering Asset Management (CIEAM)
which is a research consortium of industry and
universities supported by the Commonwealth of
Australia. The authors would like to thank the
anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions and
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Allen S.B. Tam graduated from University of New South Wales (Sydney) with a first class honours
in Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace). He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Monash University under the supervision of Prof. John W. H. Price and Dr
Weng M. Chan in the area of decision making support for engineering asset management. The
research is funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Engineering Asset Management
(Email: allen.tam@eng.monash.edu.au).
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Weng Meng Chan is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Monash University, Australia. He holds a PhD in industrial engineering and engineering
management, and a BEng in industrial and computing. He is certified as a Quality Engineer
(CQE) and Reliability Engineer (CRE) by the American Society for Quality. He also holds the status
of Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) by APICS. His research interests
include quality engineering and management, statistical process control and production and
inventory systems (Email: wmcha4@rocketmail.com).

Professor John W. H. Price is in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Monash University,

Australia. He works in the areas of
. the deformation and failure of materials,
. the design, operation, failure and repair of industrial equipment and
. maintenance and asset assessment.
He has wide industry experience in Europe and Australia as a researcher and consultant. He has
written over 130 publications and edited seven books and is on the editorial board of the
International Journal of Pressure Vessels and Pipework and Engineering Failure Analysis. He is a
project leader for models and decision systems in the Cooperative Research Centre for Integrated
Engineering Asset Management which is a research consortium of industry and universities
supported by the Commonwealth of Australia (Email: john.price@eng.monash.edu.au).