Optimization of flows and preventive maintenance in a manufacturing unit

In the literature, maintenance policies and production control are generally treated separately or sequentially. In this paper we propose a joint maintenance and inventory control policy for the optimization of the production cost for a manufacturing system. The considered system consists of one machine subject to random failures, repairs and preventive maintenance activities with random durations. A simulation model and experimental design are used to determine optimal decision variables, which are the time at which preventive maintenance must be performed and the buffer size.