Physical asset management is greatly affected by business cycle uncertainty. The main sources of uncertainty in asset-intensive industries such as mining are associated with external factors (i.e. market conditions) and internal factors (occurrence of failures, processing times, production rates, etc.). This scenario results in risks for operations that complicate decision making. One way to handle uncertainty is to use real options analysis (ROA). This technique allows to implement flexible decision-making that minimizes risk and offers the possibility to add value by taking advantage of uncertainty. Its application in engineering decision making is quite low in general, and even more in maintenance. This paper proposes an original model to set a flexible fleet maintenance strategy using ROA. We consider two main sources of uncertainty: commodity price volatility and component reliability. The method considers two stages: firstly, an optimum time between overhauls is determined at each period of time; and secondly, the option of deferring maintenance in a certain amount of time is evaluated. The case study considers a fleet of mining equipment. The application of this model increased net present value of a ten-year time span by 12 %.
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