An event-based analysis of condition-based maintenance decision-making in multistage production systems

摘要

Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is becoming increasingly prevalent because of its capability to continuously track equipment health degradation and accurately predict unscheduled equipment failure. CBM helps to improve the business bottom line by preventing costly station failure. However, it is not uncommon that CBM needs to stop stations for maintenance during operation, which can severely impede the normal production. The objective of this paper is to develop a systematic method to predict the negative impact of CBM stoppage events on production in a multistage manufacturing system. The research helps to predict the real expense of applying CBM, which is the foundation to establish a comprehensive real-time CBM decision-making model. We start from the event-based analysis of system dynamics and develop a stochastic estimation method to predict the permanent production loss caused by a CBM stoppage event. The monotonicity property of permanent production loss is investigated. Simulation case studies are performed to illustrate the theoretical results and demonstrate their potential in facilitating CBM decision-making.