Exploring random maintenance models, this book provides an introduction to the implementation of random maintenance, and it is one of the first books to be written on this subject. It aims to help readers learn new techniques for applying random policies to actual reliability models, and it provides new theoretical analyses of various models including classical replacement, preventive maintenance and inspection policies. These policies are applied to scheduling problems, backup policies of database systems, maintenance policies of cumulative damage models, and reliability of random redundant systems. Reliability theory is a major concern for engineers and managers, and in light of Japan’s recent earthquake, the reliability of large-scale systems has increased in importance. This also highlights the need for a new notion of maintenance and reliability theory, and how this can practically be applied to systems. Providing an essential guide for engineers and managers specializing in reliability maintenance and quality control, this book provides a useful resource for those with doubts carrying out maintenance of new and large systems. It is also intended for graduate students and researchers interested in operations research, statistics, industrial engineering and management science.

Reliability theory is a major concern for engineers and managers engaged in making high quality products and designing highly reliable systems. “Advanced Reliability Models and Maintenance Policies” is a survey of new research topics in reliability theory and optimization techniques in reliability engineering. The book introduces partition and redundant problems within reliability models, and provides optimization techniques. The book also indicates how to perform maintenance in a finite time span and at failure detection, and to apply recovery techniques for computer systems. New themes such as reliability complexity and service reliability in reliability theory are theoretically proposed, and optimization problems in management science using reliability techniques are presented. The book is an essential guide for graduate students and researchers in reliability theory, and a valuable reference for reliability engineers engaged both in maintenance work and in management and computer systems.

Many serious accidents have happened in the world where systems have been large-scale and complex, and have caused heavy damage and a social sense of instability. Furthermore, advanced nations have almost ?nished public inf- structureandrushedintoamaintenanceperiod.Maintenancewillbemore- portant than production, manufacture, and construction, that is, more ma- tenance for environmental considerations and for the protection of natural resources. From now on, the importance of maintenance will increase more and more. In the past four decades, valuable contributions to maintenance policies in reliability theory have been made. This book is intended to s- marize the research results studied mainly by the author in the past three decades. The book deals primarily with standard to advanced problems of main- nance policies for system reliability models. System reliability can be mainly improved by repair and preventive maintenance, and replacement, and rel- bility properties can be investigated by using stochastic process techniques. The optimum maintenance policies for systems that minimize or maximize appropriate objective functions under suitable conditions are discussed both analytically and practically. The book is composed of nine chapters. Chapter 1 is devoted to an int- duction to reliability theory, and brie?y reviews stochastic processes needed for reliability and maintenance theory. Chapter 2 summarizes the results of repair maintenance, which is the most basic maintenance in reliability. The repair maintenance of systems such as the one-unit system and multiple-unit redundant systems is treated. Chapters 3 through 5 summarize the results of three typical maintenance policies of age, periodic, and block replacements.

To be able to compete successfully both at national and international levels, production systems and equipment must perform at levels not even thinkable a decade ago. Requirements for increased product quality, reduced throughput time and enhanced operating effectiveness within a rapidly changing customer demand environment continue to demand a high maintenance performance. In some cases, maintenance is required to increase operational effectiveness and revenues and customer satisfaction while reducing capital, operating and support costs. This may be the largest challenge facing production enterprises these days. For this, maintenance strategy is required to be aligned with the production logistics and also to keep updated with the current best practices. Maintenance has become a multidisciplinary activity and one may come across situations in which maintenance is the responsibility of people whose training is not engineering. This handbook aims to assist at different levels of understanding whether the manager is an engineer, a production manager, an experienced maintenance practitioner or a beginner. Topics selected to be included in this handbook cover a wide range of issues in the area of maintenance management and engineering to cater for all those interested in maintenance whether practitioners or researchers. This handbook is divided into 6 parts and contains 26 chapters covering a wide range of topics related to maintenance management and engineering.

This text represents state-of-the-art trends and developments in the emerging field of engineering asset management as presented at the Sixth World Congress on Engineering Asset Management (WCEAM) held in Cincinnati, OH, USA from October 3-5, 2011 The Proceedings of the WCEAM 2011 is an excellent reference for practitioners, researchers and students in the multidisciplinary field of asset management, covering topics such as: Asset condition monitoring and intelligent maintenance; Asset data warehousing, data mining and fusion; Asset performance and level-of-service models; Design and lifecycle integrity of physical assets; Deterioration and preservation models for assets; Education and training in asset management; Engineering standards in asset management; Fault diagnosis and prognostics; Financial analysis methods for physical assets; Human dimensions in integrated asset management; Information quality management; Information systems and knowledge management; Intelligent maintenance; Intelligent sensors and devices; Maintenance strategies in asset management; Optimization decisions in asset management; Prognostics & Health Management; Risk management in asset management; Strategic asset management; and Sustainability in asset management.

S. Panchapakesan has made significant contributions to ranking and selection and has published in many other areas of statistics, including order statistics, reliability theory, stochastic inequalities, and inference. Written in his honor, the twenty invited articles in this volume reflect recent advances in these areas and form a tribute to Panchapakesan’s influence and impact on these areas. Featuring theory, methods, applications, and extensive bibliographies with special emphasis on recent literature, this comprehensive reference work will serve researchers, practitioners, and graduate students in the statistical and applied mathematics communities.

The development of Reliability and Maintenance theory and applications has become major concerns of engineers and managers engaged in order to design and product systems that are highly reliable. This book aims to cover the ongoing research topics in computer system, reliability analysis, reliability applications and maintenance policies, so as to provide awareness for those who engage systems design, being students, technicians, or research engineers, as a reference guidebook.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains the full texts of the lectures and papers presented at IABMAS '06.