Queuing network-based methodology for designing and assessing performance of centralized maintenance workshops

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, the authors are concerned with a maintenance workshop (MW) centralizing all corrective maintenance activities. The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology for designing a central maintenance workshop, enabling the evaluation of performance in terms of cost and sojourn time, for a given budget.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors propose a modeling framework based on queuing networks. The aim is to maximize operational availability of the production workshop, by reducing the sojourn time of failed equipment in the MW.

Findings

The proposed methodology leads to a maintenance decision support tool enabling to give the structure of the MW, performing at a higher level, but at a reasonable configuration cost. Simulation results illustrate the influence of different parameters, such as the number of stations and the level of spare parts in the MW, on the sojourn time of the equipment.

Research limitations/implications

Only corrective maintenance is taken into account and only equipment that can be taken out of the production workshop are considered. The preventive replacement of some equipment items can be taken into account by the repair process by considering them as failed.

Originality/value

The work falls within a more general framework for optimizing maintenance costs, in the context of integration of multi-site services in a distributed context. The paper is concerned with centralized maintenance, and proposes to integrate the so-called repair by replacement technique in a MW, used for a multi-site production workshop.

Citation

Simeu-Abazi, Z., Di Mascolo, M. and Gascard, E. (2014), "Queuing network-based methodology for designing and assessing performance of centralized maintenance workshops", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 510-527. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-03-2013-0025