TY - JOUR
T1 - N Subpopulations experiencing stochastic degradation
T2 - Reliability modeling, burn-in, and preventive replacement optimization
AU - Xiang, Yisha
AU - Coit, David W.
AU - Feng, Qianmei
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/4/1
Y1 - 2013/4/1
N2 - For some engineering design and manufacturing applications, particularly for evolving and new technologies, populations of manufactured components can be heterogeneous and consist of several subpopulations. The co-existence of n subpopulations is particularly common in devices when the manufacturing process is still maturing or highly variable. A new model is developed and demonstrated to simultaneously determine burn-in and age-based preventive replacement policies for populations composed of distinct subpopulations subject to stochastic degradation. Unlike traditional burn-in procedures that stress devices to failure, we present a decision rule that uses burn-in threshold on cumulative deterioration, in addition to burn-in time, to eliminate weak subpopulations. Only devices with post-burn-in deterioration levels below the burn-in threshold are released for field operations. Inspection errors are considered when screening burned-in devices. Preventive replacement is employed to prevent failures from occurring during field operation. We examine the effectiveness of such integrated polycies for non-homogeneous populations. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the proposed procedure. Sensitivity analysis is performed to analyze the impacts of model parameters on optimal policies. Numerical results indicate there are potential cost savings from simutaneouly determining burn-in and maintenance policies as opposed to a traditional approach that makes decisions on burn-in and maintenance actions separately.
AB - For some engineering design and manufacturing applications, particularly for evolving and new technologies, populations of manufactured components can be heterogeneous and consist of several subpopulations. The co-existence of n subpopulations is particularly common in devices when the manufacturing process is still maturing or highly variable. A new model is developed and demonstrated to simultaneously determine burn-in and age-based preventive replacement policies for populations composed of distinct subpopulations subject to stochastic degradation. Unlike traditional burn-in procedures that stress devices to failure, we present a decision rule that uses burn-in threshold on cumulative deterioration, in addition to burn-in time, to eliminate weak subpopulations. Only devices with post-burn-in deterioration levels below the burn-in threshold are released for field operations. Inspection errors are considered when screening burned-in devices. Preventive replacement is employed to prevent failures from occurring during field operation. We examine the effectiveness of such integrated polycies for non-homogeneous populations. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the proposed procedure. Sensitivity analysis is performed to analyze the impacts of model parameters on optimal policies. Numerical results indicate there are potential cost savings from simutaneouly determining burn-in and maintenance policies as opposed to a traditional approach that makes decisions on burn-in and maintenance actions separately.
KW - burn-in
KW - inspection errors
KW - mixture degradation
KW - n Subpopulations
KW - preventive replacement
KW - stochastic degradation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84872552611&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/0740817X.2012.689124
DO - 10.1080/0740817X.2012.689124
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84872552611
VL - 45
SP - 391
EP - 408
JO - IIE Transactions (Institute of Industrial Engineers)
JF - IIE Transactions (Institute of Industrial Engineers)
SN - 0740-817X
IS - 4
ER -