(s,Q) spare parts provisioning strategy for periodically replaced systems

A joint preventive maintenance and spare parts provisioning strategy is suggested for a failure prone system. Replacements are carried-out at failure, if spare parts are available, and at spare parts replenishment delivery instants. Spare parts are provisioned according to an (s, Q) control policy. The ordering parameters, and preventive maintenance interval are derived from a mathematical model which aims at maximizing the system's availability under a budget constraint. The model takes into account the system lifetime distribution, the preventive and corrective maintenance costs and durations, as well as the total spare parts inventory management cost. Unlike classical inventory management models, the s-expected total cost is derived using the system lifetime distribution. Because each demand for spare parts is triggered by failure, the probabilities of shortage, and surplus will be evaluated based on the system failure distribution rather than the demand distribution during the lead-time. Numerical results have been obtained for an illustrative example.