Customer-Centered Multi-State System Reliability and Repair Models

Abstract: This paper proposes a decision model for when to repair a multi-state system from the collective viewpoint of the system designer/engineer as well as the system users (customers). Most systems normally deteriorate stochastically over time, and have several levels of performance. This degradation of performance causes the utility loss for customers and forces them to consider repairing/restoring the system before it reaches the state total failure. The decision model proposed in this paper is a dynamic model that incorporates the stochastic degradation process of a system’s performance and a customer’s objective and subjective factors related to repair costs and utility derived from the system.