Selecting the apropriate product monitoring levels for maintenance operations: A simulation approach

The demand for higher product availability has increased through product and service offerings such as Product Service Systems (PSS), where the product is sold for its use rather than the product itself. This has led to pressures on maintenance operations, particularly for out of sight products. Some authors have suggested applying sensors and the use of diagnostics and prognostics to monitor product performance driven by the generally held belief that diagnosing and/or predicting future failure will lead to higher product availability. In this paper, we show the ability of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to compare between different product monitoring levels. This capability is then applied to an industrial case to investigate whether or not the higher the monitoring level leads to higher product availability.