ECONOMIC MODELING FOR PROGNOSTIC HEALTH MANAGEMENT

摘要

Prognostic Health Management (PHM) provides the opportunity for system operators to monitor performance, detect abnormal conditions and identify precursors of future failures before they experience a service interruption or catastrophic failure. The projected benefits of PHM include increased availability, improved reliability and reduced cost of operations. One challenge to the use of PHM has been the lack of economic models that describe projected benefits in traditional business terms. Accurate economic benefit analysis requires identification and quantification of cost elements associated with the system being monitored and the potential savings derived from use of PHM technology. Savings can be either primary or secondary. Primary savings result directly from the use of PHM and include reduced unscheduled maintenance, decreased downtime, fewer spares, and fewer catastrophic failures. Secondary elements of savings are more difficult to identify and are often overlooked in an economic analysis. However, they are just as important as the primary elements. Examples of secondary elements include improvement of operational effectiveness, better use of personnel resources and lengthening of scheduled maintenance intervals. This paper describes a simple economic model for investigation of PHM and shows how these principles can be applied to PHM application in any business sector.