Citation

Sheppard JM. Reliab. Eng. 1983; 4(1): 19-39.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(83)90054-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines maintenance policies for devices which are stored until required for use. It is assumed that some assurance that the devices will be failure free when needed is provided by a servicing procedure in which they are removed from store periodically to be tested, repaired if necessary, and then returned to store. It is shown that a critical parameter in determining servicing periodicity is the completeness of the test, i.e. test effectiveness. It is suspected that many such maintenance schemes are far from optimum or cost-effective, and indeed availability may even be lowered by each servicing. A method for optimising such maintenance schemes is presented.