Reliability-Centered Preventive Maintenance Optimization for a Single-Component Mechanical Equipment

Abstract

Due to the high failure rates of mechanical equipment with complex structures and numerous moving parts, devising an effective preventive maintenance (PM) plan and avoiding the influence brought by failure is crucial. However, some PM efforts are disorganized, unpractical, and unscientific, leading to prolonged downtime and significant cost losses. The challenge in creating PM plans is exacerbated by the asymmetry between maintenance and failure data. Therefore, focusing on single-unit mechanical equipment, the reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) idea is put forward to find out the key parts to implement preventive maintenance, and PM models are built to draw up a more reasonable PM plan. Such strategies aim to lower maintenance costs and enhance economic performance. Data on past maintenance and failures are analyzed to determine the life distribution and maintenance effect functions, helping to quantify the uncertainty caused by data asymmetry. Two PM optimization models considering time-varying failure rates are proposed: one focuses on minimizing costs, while the other aims to maximize availability. A PM plan example is demonstrated using a component from a tire-building machine including six parts, which proves the validity of the models. The availability results of two parts corresponding to the maintenance strategy obtained by the availability maximization model are above 0.99, and the results of total costs per unit time of the remaining four parts obtained by the cost minimization model are under 5.69.