Integrating Condition-Based Maintenance into Dynamic Spare Parts Management

Abstract: In this paper we introduce a new model where the concept of condition-based maintenance is combined in a network setting with dynamic spare parts management. The model facilitates both preventive and corrective maintenance of geographically distributed capital goods as well as relocation of spare parts between different warehouses based on the availability of stock and the condition of all capital good installations. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process, with the degradation process explicitly incorporated into the model. Numerical experiments show that that significant cost savings can be achieved when condition monitoring is used for preventive maintenance in a service network for capital goods.