Author(s)

Tomohiro Kitagawa, Tetsushi Yuge, Shigeru Yanagi

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, National Defense Academy, Yokosuka, Japan.

One-shot systems such as missiles and extinguishers are placed in storage for a long time and used only once during their lives. Their reliability deteriorates with time even when they are in storage, and their failures are detected only through inspections for their characteristics. Thus, we need to decide an appropriate inspection policy for such systems. In this paper, we deal with a system comprising non-identical units in series, where only minimal repairs are performed when unit failures are detected by periodic inspections. The system is replaced and becomes “as good as new” when the nth failure of the system is detected. Our objective is to find the optimal inspection interval and number of failures before replacement that minimize the expected total system cost per unit of time.

One-Shot System, Maintenance Policy, Minimal Repair, Cost Rate

Kitagawa, T. , Yuge, T. and Yanagi, S. (2015) Optimum Maintenance Policy for a One-Shot System with Series Structure Considering Minimal Repair. Applied Mathematics, 6, 326-331. doi: 10.4236/am.2015.62031.