A mathematical formulation of the problem of optimization of inspection planning in asset management

Abstract

The problem of optimal planning for inspection of assets in engineering asset management is formulated in the case that the inspections take place at the beginning of the planning period. It is shown that the problem has the form of a 0-1 knapsack problem. The formulation is applicable to systems consisting of multiple assets. The concept of risk, as usually defined in asset management, arises from the formulation in a natural way and plays an important part in identifying optimal inspection plans. Two special cases are considered. In the first special case, where the inspection budget is large, the optimal inspection plan involves inspecting all assts whose risk is sufficiently large. In the second special case, where the costs and expected benefits associated with each asset are the same and the conditional probability of failure of each asset given that it has been inspected is negligible, the optimal inspection plan involves prioritization of assets on the basis of risk alone.