Abstract:

In this paper, an inspection strategy for a multi-state system is proposed. This system can be in any of three states: nominal operating state, degraded state or failure state. The system state is known only after inspection. A maintenance action is undertaken when at a predetermined instant an inspection reveals that the system is in degraded or failure state. The maintenance action restores the system to its nominal operating mode with a certain probability. For this study, a periodic type inspection strategy is used. It aims at maximizing the productivity of the considered multi-state system. Analytical and numerical results are presented.