Customer-Centered Multi-State System Reliability and Repair Models

Abstract

This paper proposes a decision model for when to repair a multi-state system from the collective viewpoint of the system designer/engineer as well as the system users (customers). Most systems normally deteriorate stochastically over time, and have several levels of performance. This degradation of performance causes the utility loss for customers and forces them to consider repairing/restoring the system before it reaches the state total failure. The decision model proposed in this paper is a dynamic model that incorporates the stochastic degradation process of a system’s performance and a customer’s objective and subjective factors related to repair costs and utility derived from the system.

Key Words:

• Decision models
• multi-state systems
• repair costs
• stochastic degradation processes
• utility

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yung-wen Liu

Yung-wen Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He received his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington-Seattle in summer 2006. His research and teaching interests include reliability and maintainability analysis, applied statistics, simulation methods, and healthcare modeling. At the University of M-Dearborn, he has been working research projects with several local healthcare systems including Henry Ford Health System, Oakwood Health System and John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit. His research can be found in IIE transactions, and several medical journals including Journal of Urology.

Kailash C. Kapur

Kailash C. Kapur is a Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Washington. He has served as the Director of Industrial Engineering from 1993–99. He was a Professor and the Director of the School of Industrial Engineering, University of Oklahoma from 1989–1992. Dr. Kapur received the Ph.D. degree (1969) in Industrial Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has co-authored the book Reliability in Engineering Design, John Wiley & Sons, 1977. He is a Fellow of ASQ and IIE and a registered professional engineer.