Simulation-Based Inspection Policies for a One-Shot System in Storage Over a Finite Time Span

Abstract

In this paper, we consider an inspection policy problem for a one-shot system with two types of units over a finite time span and want to determine inspection intervals optimally with given replacement points of Type 2 units. The interval availability and life cycle cost are used as optimization criteria and estimated by simulation. Two optimization models are proposed to find the optimal inspection intervals for the exponential and general distributions. A heuristic method and a genetic algorithm are proposed to find the near-optimal inspection intervals, to satisfy the target interval availability and minimize the life-cycle cost. We study numerical examples to compare the heuristic method with the genetic algorithm and investigate the effect of model parameters to the optimal solutions.

Keywords:

• Genetic algorithm
• Heuristic method
• Inspection policy
• Interval availability
• One-shot system
• Simulation.

Mathematics Subject Classification:

• Primary 90B25
• Secondary 68U20

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (No.2010-0025084).