Preventive Maintenance Schedule for Gear Manufacturing Shop Using Genetic Algorithm

The Genetic Algorithm (GA) has been used widely to solve an array of combinatorial optimization problems such as the traveling salesman problem, the job-shop scheduling problem, the quadratic assignment problem, and production planning problems. On the other hand, solving the problem of Preventive Maintenance (PM) scheduling for a group of non-identical machines using a GA is a relatively new topic. Thus, in this paper a GA is used to optimize a particular PM schedule. The objective is to satisfy the maintenance requirements of various non-identical machines as closely as possible to their due dates, since there is a cost associated with undertaking the maintenance task either ‘too early’ or ‘too late’. An approach, employing a penalty method is used for the non-confirmation of the observed PM frequency with the desired PM frequency for a given machine.