Minimal repair and readjustment actions for production equipment maintenance

A multicomponent production equipment is analyzed that requires occasional overhauls and readjustments to cut back increasing runtime costs. In addition stochastic failures of components are reset by so—called minimal repair actions. The occurence of failures as well as the initial runtime costs form independent stochastic processes. Using renewal theoretic arguments the behaviour of the equipment is mathematically evaluated. For a generalized loss structure sufficiency criteria are derived to provide for maximum availability, minimum costs, and maximum returns (using a costs dependent policy) in the long run.