Maintenance decision-making and throughput rates in unreliable production systems

Abstract

Unreliable work stations are examined and decision rules are established for the interruption of operation before a breakdown occurs. These rules depend upon the risk assessment by the user, the state of the station, and its probabilistic characteristics. The state of the station is registered by some mechanism and is represented by a finite field of events.

After the decision rules have been established, series and parallel networks of stations are considered and expected production and throughput rates are computed. The expected throughput rates depend on the decision made, as well as the probabilistic nature of the repair effort.