A novel maintenance policy for multi-component systems under imperfect maintenance

Purpose This paper aims to develop a novel dynamic inspection and imperfect maintenance policy for a multi-component system considering dynamic importance. The system consists of a critical component and an auxiliary component, focusing on the dependency of the critical component and the auxiliary component. Design/methodology/approach When the degradation level of the auxiliary component exceeds a certain threshold, the importance of the auxiliary component will increase. Non-periodic inspections are conducted on the components, followed by the implementation of imperfect maintenance actions depending on the inspection conditions. Findings By minimizing the long-run average cost of the system, the optimal preventive maintenance threshold for both components can be derived. Numerical and comparative experiments are applied to verify the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed model. Originality/value A novel imperfect maintenance policy for a multi-component system is proposed. The Monte Carlo simulation algorithm is utilized to manage the intricate relationships between maintenance strategies and the degradation of a boring tool with damping.