Manufacturing flow control and preventing maintenance: a stochastic control approach

A stochastic control model for simultaneously planning production and maintenance in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is proposed, and an efficient technique for computing the optimal control policy is developed. The model extends previous formulations by including an age-dependent machine failure rate and by allowing the control to influence some jump rates (namely the preventive maintenance activities). By using an adaptation to the case of piecewise-deterministic systems of the approximation technique initially proposed by H.J. Kushner (1977) in the realm of the optimal control of diffusions, one shows how it is possible to computer the optimal control for a two-machine system