Maintenance decision-making for a two-component buffered serial production system

This paper presents a maintenance decision-making model for a two-component serial production system. The Gamma process describes the deterioration process of the component. When the component deteriorates to a preventive maintenance (PM) threshold, the component is restored by PM. When the upstream component is in the PM state, and the downstream component deteriorates to the opportunistic maintenance (OM) threshold, the downstream component is restored by OM. The optimal PM threshold and OM threshold are derived by minimizing the long-run average cost of the system. Finally, a case study and a parameter sensitivity analysis are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the presented model.