Discrete-event simulation of a maintenance policy with multiple scenarios

The current study offers a discrete-event simulation algorithm developed to reveal the effects of different maintenance work packages on the failure and the cost profiles of the mining systems. The algorithm is stochastic with two possible optimization criteria as maximizing system availability and minimizing maintenance cost for a given period. A numeric example is also provided to highlight how the effectiveness of a maintenance policy may differ with its content. In the example, 42 alternative maintenance policies were applied to an earthmover where corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance in regular inspections and opportunistic maintenance were located combinatorially for different inspection intervals. The total maintenance cost was dropped to $913,481 with an achievable production of 7,304 h for the optimal policy that included only corrective and opportunistic maintenance in the system-level, and excluded regular inspections