Optimum Failure Finding Inspection During Extended Operation Life

In a complex system such as railway and aviation equipment’s, it may be necessary to employ a combination of Failure Finding Inspection (FFI) and a scheduled discard task, as suggested by Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM). This strategy ensures an adequate level of availability of hidden functions, as well as the reduction of the risk of multiple failures to an acceptable level. However, in some situations, operators prefer to extend the discard life of components beyond their recommended life limit, due to the operational restrictions. This necessitates the definition of an optimal Failure Finding Inspection interval for the extended life period. This paper aims to provide a mathematical model for defining optimal FFI interval, during the extended period of the replacement life. A cost function (CF) is developed to identify the cost per unit of time associated with different FFI intervals, for the proposed extended period of life, i.e. postponement period. The proposed method concerns as-bad-as-old (ABAO) inspection and repairs (due to failures found by inspection). It considers inspection and repair times, and takes into account the costs associated with inspection and repair, the opportunity cost of lost production due to maintenance downtime created by inspection and repair actions, and also the cost of accidents due to the occurrence of multiple failure.