Robust Condition-Based Operations & Maintenance: Synergizing Multi-Asset Degradation Rate Interactions and Operations-Induced Degradation

Abstract: Effective operations and maintenance (O&M) in modern production systems hinges on careful orchestration of economic and degradation dependencies across a multitude of assets. While the economic dependencies are well studied, degradation dependencies and their impact on system operations remain an open challenge. To address this challenge, we model condition-based production and maintenance decisions for multi-asset systems with degradation interactions. There is a rich literature on condition-based O&M policies for single-asset systems. These models fail to represent modern systems composed of multiple interacting assets. We are providing the first O&M model to optimize O&M in multi-asset systems with embedded decision-dependent degradation interactions. We formulate robust optimization models that inherently capture degradation and failure risks by embedding degradation signals via a set of constraints, and building condition-based uncertainty sets to model probable degradation scenarios. We offer multiple reformulations and a solution algorithm to ensure computational scalability. Performance of the proposed O&M model is evaluated through extensive experiments, where the degradation is either emulated or taken from vibration-based readings from a rotating machinery system. The proposed model provides significant improvements in terms of operation, maintenance, and reliability metrics. Due to a myriad of dependencies across assets and decisions, it is often difficult to translate asset-level failure predictions to system-level O&M decisions. This challenge puts a significant barrier to the return on investment in condition monitoring and smart maintenance systems. Our approach offers a seamless integration of data-driven failure modeling and mathematical programming to bridge the gap across predictive and prescriptive models.