Joint optimization of quality control and maintenance policy for a production system with quality-dependent failures

Abstract

A machine is either subject to hard failure or soft failure, while quality-dependent failure is usually ignored in production systems. However, in practice, non-conforming products generally accelerate the degradation process of production systems. To fill these gaps, this paper formulated an integrated model of the optimal quality control policy and maintenance policies under the quality-dependent failures for production systems. Since the severe degradation of product machines directly impacts the non-conforming rate, effective preventive and opportunistic maintenance actions are necessary. Moreover, the production system can timely be corrected from an out-of-control state to a control state after adopting a minimal repair. An opportunity is created based on the buffer inventory level instead of the machine degradation level, which is different from previous research. The production machine can be opportunistically maintained at the point of maximum inventory. The renewal process is utilized to derive the integrated optimization model, and the collaboration relationship among production, quality control and maintenance management problems is taken into consideration. The system’s total cost rate is minimized by optimizing the preventive maintenance threshold and sampling control coefficients. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the priority of the proposed model and the optimal results are obtained by differential evaluation algorithm, which provides a more meaningful perspective for managers.