Modifying Markov Models of Ageing Equipment for Modeling Changes in Maintenance Policies

The paper presents a method for adjustments of parameters of Markov models representing ageing equipment. The adjustment procedure begins with some basic model that represents both the equipment ageing and various maintenance activities. The solution of the model gives, among other results, the frequencies of the repair states. These frequencies are also known from maintenance records. The proposed method automatically adjusts model’s internal parameters so that the computed and actual frequencies of repairs match. The paper describes structure of the Markov model, presents main steps of the adjustment procedure, discusses different numerical implementations of the crucial step of probability tuning, then presents two case studies that show results of the method and identify essential characteristics of the model that are vital for successful reaching the adjustment goal.