In this paper we present an integration of optirnisation, priority setting, planning and combining of maintenance activities. We use a framework which covers several optimisation models, like the block replacement, a minimal repair and an efficiency model, and develop a uniform analysis for all these models. From this analysis penalty functions are derived which can act as priority criterion fu...

One of the most important factors for the sustainable development of any country is the quality and efficiency of its transportation system. The principled and accurate maintenance of roads, in addition to having a major impact on budget savings, improves the quality and service levels of the transportation system. For this reason, road management and maintenance are the main pillars of the tra...

Maintenance of assets is a multi-million dollar cost each year for asset intensive organisations in the defence, manufacturing, resource and infrastructure sectors. These costs are tracked though maintenance work order (MWO) records. MWO records contain structured data dates, costs, identification unstructured text describing required, example ‘replace leaking pump’. Our focus this paper on qua...

We propose in this study a hierarchical method for the problem of scheduling N jobs on M parallel machines where each machine should be maintained once during the planning horizon. The maintenance tasks should be continuously executed because the maintenance resources are not sufficient. Our objective is to find a schedule composed of the jobs and the maintenance tasks in which the total sum of...

Nowadays railway companies are confronted with high infrastructure maintenance costs. Therefore good strategies are needed to carry out these maintenance activities in a most cost effective way. In this paper we solve the preventive maintenance scheduling problem (PMSP) using genetic algorithms, memetic algorithms and a two-phase heuristic based on opportunities. The aim of the PMSP is to sched...

Software development settings provide a great opportunity for CSCW researchers to study collaborative work. In this paper, we explore a specific work practice called bug reproduction that is a part of the software bug-fixing process. Bug reproduction is a highly collaborative process by which software developers attempt to locally replicate the ‘environment’ within which a bug was originally en...

Advances in sensor technology have enabled companies to make significant progress towards achieving condition-based maintenance (CBM). CBM provides the opportunity to perform maintenance actions more effectively. However, scheduling maintenance at the unit level may imply a high maintenance frequency at the asset level, which can be costly and undesirable for safety reasons. In this paper, we c...

Engineers refer to technical manuals when performing maintenance on complex mechanical equipment, often located in difficult environments. Wearable computers provide their users access to information at any time or place. It is hypothesised that accessing technical manuals on a wearable computer would allow maintenance engineers to perform their tasks faster and more accurately. A planned case ...