RCM-Fuzzy Model and Its Applications to Maintenance with Cost/Serviceability Optimization

This paper is aimed to develop a theoretical study for providing a fuzzy optimization model suitable to maintain industrial facility system based on "Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)" method, which has been widely used in practice. However, RCM is just a qualitative logical strategic method rather than a practical implementable decisive action mechanism driven by quantitative indications. By introducing an overall fuzzy deterioration state indicator S of the facility, the repair action plan of the facility group for each individual facility can be optimized, where S is a fuzzy quantity composed by the sub-states of its sub-system, which are determined fuzzily. The paper shows the applicability of "RCM-Fuzzy model" to facility group maintenance in various industries. As the system variable for a system decision making problem, the -repair kind Rij for i-th individual sub-system of particular j-th facility is determined by solving a fuzzy optimization problem with maximizing service life and minimizing repair cost of the facility group. A case study of the metro vehicle system is then presented.