Preventive Replacement Model Based on Substitutive Characteristics : the case of periodic observation

대용특성을 이용한 예방정비모형 : 주기적으로 관측하는 경우

Items are assumed to fail by degradation. An appropriate stochastic model of such item is a cumulative process in which an item can fail only when the total amount of wear exceeds a prespecified failure level. This paper presents replacement policy in which an item is replaced at a certain level of wear before failure or at failure, whichever occurs first. Yet, when measuring the item wear level is very expensive, destructive or time-consuming, it may be economical to use substitutive characteristics that are correlated with the item wear level and relatively inexpensive to measure. The item's wear level could usually be estimated by monitoring such substitutive characteristics only except for a breakdown, which may be observed immediately at its occurrence. The purpose of this paper is to find an optimal periodic replacement policy based on such substitutive characteristics that balance the cost of replacement with the cost of failure and result in a minimum total long-run average cost per unit time. The optimal level of substitutive characteristics to replace the item is obtained. Numerical example illustrate how the model can be used to determine the optimal replacement policy.