Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610

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Reliability Engineering and System Safety

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Condition-based dynamic maintenance operations planning & grouping.

Application to commercial heavy vehicles
K. Bouvard a,c, S. Artus a, C. Berenguer b,, V. Cocquempot c
a
Volvo Technology, 99 route de Lyon, 69806 Saint Priest cedex, France
b
Universite de technologie de Troyes - Institut Charles Delaunay and UMR CNRS 6279 - 12, rue Marie Curie, BP2060, 10010 Troyes cedex, France
c
Laboratoire dAutomatique de Genie Informatique et Signal - FRE3303 - PolytechLille, 59655 Villeneuve dAscq, France

a r t i c l e in f o abstract

Available online 22 December 2010 This paper aims at presenting a method to optimize the maintenance planning for a commercial heavy
Keywords: vehicle. Such a vehicle may be considered as a multi-components system. Grouping maintenance operations
Condition-based maintenance related to each component reduces the global maintenance cost of the system. Classically, the optimization
Multi-component maintenance model problem is solved using a priori reliability characteristics of components. Two types of methods may be used,
Maintenance grouping i.e. static or dynamic methods. Static methods provide a xed maintenance planning, whereas dynamic
Rolling horizon methods redene the groups of maintenance operations at each decision time. Dynamic procedures can
Gamma process incorporate component information such as component states or detected failures. For deteriorating systems,
reliability characteristics of each component may be estimated thanks to deterioration models and may be
updated when a degradation measure is available. This additional information on degradation features allows
to better follow the real state of each component and to improve the maintenance planning.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction maintenance management benets of this technological break-

1.1. Maintenance for commercial heavy vehicles
In the last decade, maintenance management slowly becomes of
primary importance in the commercial vehicle industry for all
original equipment manufacturers. In a world moving from own-
ership to experience [13], the commercial vehicle aftermarket
network and processes are today really centric. That is actually the
only remaining place where vehicle manufacturers can meet their
customers face to face.
As a consequence, the development of efcient maintenance
management systems has started in an industry where maintenance
was primary mechanic centric 10 years ago. Shifting from traditional
repair to maintenance services is, however, not an easy task.
The vehicle technology complexity grew rapidly thanks to both
internet driven developments in informatics and electronic
enablers. Nowadays, almost 90% of our vehicles are equipped with
embedded electronics. Methods, tools and processes require to be
changed as well as skills involved in the vehicle design phase.
Aftermarket specic tools also showed up to manage that complex-
ity once unexpected event happened during operations. However,
throughs. The integration of smarter sensors and actuators indeed
increases actual knowledge of vehicles health status.
As consequence maintenance management becomes a more and
more complex task within industrial companies [11]. Thanks to
possibilities offered by new Information and Communication Tech-
nology solutions, usual maintenance strategies became static com-
pared to information technology velocity and connectivity. In this
framework, maximization of vehicles uptime is one of the main
drivers to succeed in achieving this shift. Vehicle uptime is a key
performance indicator that the customer takes into account of when
he buys such a product. In the commercial vehicle business, it is even
more considered as a commitment toward customers: any unex-
pected event/breakdown would cause a direct protability loss.
Developing service planning tools is an interesting area to
investigate. It connects customers and aftermarket support centers.
Technically speaking, it is also centric among the complete process.
Impacting features outcomes such as modelling in service planning
and scheduling, condition-based maintenance and maintenance
strategies result in a planning whose performance nally affects
end-users satisfaction on our maintenance management services.

1.2. Problem statement

 Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: keomany.bouvard@volvo.com (K. Bouvard),
samuel.artus@volvo.com (S. Artus), christophe.berenguer@utt.fr (C. Berenguer),
vincent.cocquempot@univ-lille1.fr (V. Cocquempot).
Actual service planning tools are static ones. They do not
consider dynamic information from the vehicle in operation. The
service planning tools are basically a digital copy of a service

0951-8320/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ress.2010.11.009
602 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610
manual. Maintenance operations are scheduled at xed time
intervals. These maintenance time intervals depend on the vehicle
conguration and the specied vehicle usage. This usage is dened
by the customer expectations but sometimes the current vehicle
usage does not correspond to the actual one:
 If the vehicle operates in more severe environment than the
specied one, some components will wear more rapidly and
could cause a vehicle immobilization. Maintenance cost will
then increase with the immobilization and corrective costs,
which are very expensive.
 If the actual vehicle usage is less severe than the specied one,
some components will be changed before their actual end of
useful lifetime. In this case, the maintenance cost could be
reduced if the early replacements were avoided.
The idea is to develop a maintenance model which is able to
optimize dynamically the maintenance decisions on a multi-
component system. This method should be based on monitoring
component information and should group dynamically the main-
tenance operations.
1.3. Literature overview
Maintenance models were rst built to manage the mainte-
nance operations of a single component. Then, researches focus on
the modelling and optimization of maintenance of multi-compo-
nent systems [6].
A maintenance model is composed of a model of system
reliability behavior and of a maintenance policy model. The main
aim of a maintenance model is to evaluate the overall maintenance
cost incurred by the maintenance decisions.
Many overviews of possible maintenance strategies for multi-
components systems are given by [19,10,12]. Multi-components
maintenance optimization methods are based on [15]:
 economic aspect: grouping N maintenance operations saves
cost compared with N individual maintenance actions;
 failure interaction: the failure of a component induces the
failure of other components;
 structural relationship: if some components form a part and one
of them fails, the others should be maintained at the same time.
In this paper, economic considerations are our rst motivations.
On another hand, two types of maintenance methods may be
distinguished:
 stationary grouping methods: They assume that the system
evolves in a long-term stable operating environment. Mainte-
nance plans are generated according to static rules. That implies
that all maintenance dates are scheduled at regular time intervals;
 dynamic grouping methods: They can incorporate dynamically
short-term information like the varying use of components or
unexpected component failures. They provide dynamic main-
tenance dates which change over the planning horizon.
Since operating environment and conditions of use for commercial
heavy vehicles are highly dynamic, we are interested in using
dynamic grouping methods.
The dynamic grouping methods can be categorized into two
kinds of methods [8,9,20]:
 methods with nite horizon: Consider a system in a nite
horizon, a maintenance optimization is done only over this
nite horizon. That implies the system is not used afterwards;
 methods with rolling horizon: They optimize repeatedly the
maintenance cost on a nite horizon at each decision time. They
are based on a long-term plan which can be adapted according
to the available short-term information.
A commercial heavy vehicle is used during several years. It is then
justied to choose a rolling horizon method for such a system.
Dynamic maintenance optimization method uses a priori
reliability characteristics of components to update the mainte-
nance planning at each decision time. Information about compo-
nents like the component age, the component use or a detected
failure can be incorporated.
1.4. Main contribution of the paper
Scheduling maintenance operations on the long-term means to use
an innite horizon or a rolling horizon. Although the computations are
exible on an innite horizon, short-term information like component
failure or degradation level cannot be included into the maintenance
scheduling. Using a rolling horizon brings the advantage to adapt the
maintenance decision when short-term information is available.
Maintenance cost optimization is performed on a nite horizon
which is specied at the current inspection date. Optimization is then
repeated on a new dened horizon at the next inspection date and so
on. This process reduces the system maintenance cost on a long-term
horizon.
Our method aims at scheduling system maintenance operations
and at decreasing the system maintenance cost. Maintenance cost
optimization is performed on a rolling horizon.
A rst idea is to group several maintenance operations at each date.
The grouping should reduce the maintenance stop number on the
scheduling horizon and then should reduce the logistic cost on the
system maintenance cost. Even if executing j maintenance operations
at the same date should save on the logistic cost comparing to j
maintenance operations which are executed at j different dates, the
system maintenance cost could be indirectly penalized:
 with the reduction of the component useful life if the main-
tenance dates are advanced,
 with the increasing of component failure probability which
could imply a system immobilization if the maintenance date is
executed too late.
The aim is to nd the maintenance groups which could offer the
best balance to minimize the system maintenance cost on the
scheduling horizon. To tackle this issue, our second idea is to
inspect the system at each inspection date and to take into account
the component degradation information in the maintenance
decision scheme. This process identies if maintenance operation
executions have to be advanced or delayed from current conditions.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 deals
with the assumptions related to the system and the maintenance
model. Section 3 presents the decision algorithm of the developed
maintenance policy. Section 4 illustrates the performance and the
behavior of the dynamic maintenance grouping policy with a numer-
ical experiment and sets up the issues to apply in practice the
developed maintenance policy on the commercial heavy vehicles.
2. Modelling assumptions and maintenance model
Consider a system with n components. Time is discretized with a
sample time E. This system is considered at each inspection date
Tk kt with k A N and t the system inspection period such as t y:E
Vehicle maintenance plan is updated at each inspection date
Tk kt.
 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610 603

To incorporate the current component degradation level into with G the Gamma function where
maintenance decisions, we introduce deterioration models. Z 1
Gq uq1 expu du 2
0
2.1. Deterioration models The failure probability is dened by
Fi t PZi t Z Zi,failure
Suppose that component degradation can be characterized by a
physical variable Zi with i{1,y,n}. For each component, one
Gat, bZi,failure Zi 0
failure mode and one maintenance operation are considered. Fi t 3
Gat
From an initial degradation level Zi(0), the deterioration model
can estimate the future degradation level Zi(t) of a component in a with
dynamic environment [14]. The model is based on a stochastic Z 1
degradation process. A threshold failure set Zi,failure is dened from Gu,v xu1 expx dx 4
v
technical specications to determine the component failure
(Fig. 1). When the degradation level Zi reaches Zi,failure, the
component i is considered as failed. By iteration, the model can Fig. 2 illustrates three degradation paths Zi(t) and the failure
compute the failure probability function Fi(t) (Fig. 2). probability function Fi(t) of the component i.
Assume that at each inspection date Tk, the component degra- Note E and Var, respectively, the mean and the variance of the
dation levels are automatically retrieved and the degradation Gamma process.
processes are modelled by Gamma processes. This type of process
describes a gradual and monotone degradation [1,18].
Zi t,t 4 0 is a Gamma process with shape parameter a and scale 2.2. Maintenance assumptions & operation grouping
parameter b:
Suppose that each component follows a classical age-replace-
 Zi(0) 0, ment policy, [3]. A component is replaced when it reaches a
 Zi(t) has independent increments, specied operational age or when it fails.
 For t 4 0 and h4 0, Zi t hZi t follows a Gamma distribution: Each maintenance stop cost is considered as a combination of a
xed set-up cost S and a specic maintenance cost si . The xed set-
bah ah1
f z z expb  z 1 up cost S represents the downtime cost and includes the production
Gah
loss during maintenance operation. The cost S is independent on
the considered operation i. The specic cost si of operation i
depends on the time-to-failure Ti,failure:

 si t CP , 8t oTi,failure
i

the component is preventively replaced at t before the failure.

CPi is the preventive cost of the operation i;
 si t CCi , 8t ZTi,failure
the component fails. CCi is the corrective cost of the operation i.

Many authors use these assumptions to formulate the optimization

Fig. 1. Structure of a degradation model. problem [4,5,79,16].

200
Degradation level Z

150
Zi,failure
100

50

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time

1
Failure probability

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time

Fig. 2. Different degradation paths and associated failure probability functions. a 0:4; b 0:2; Zi 0 0; Zi,failure 100.
604 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610
We assume that the time to replace a component is negligible.
Considering the following notations:
 HP is the scheduling horizon and the optimization maintenance
horizon. On this horizon HP, m maintenance operations are to be
scheduled. It is possible to have more than one occurrence of a
maintenance operation on this horizon HP.
 Gu is a maintenance group, it is composed of maintenance
operations which are mutually different and executed at the
same date tG u . Gu is a nonempty subset of {1,y,m} and is the uth
group of the grouping structure SGk,
 SGk is a grouping structure which is built at each inspection date
Tk. SGk is a collection of mutually exclusive groups {G1,y,Gu}
with u the number of groups on the scheduling horizon.
Maintenance groups of the grouping structure SGk cover all
maintenance operations, that is
3 Gj \ Gl |, 8j,l A f1, . . . ,ug2 ,
3 [l A f1,...,ug Gl f1, . . . ,mg.
Maintenance scheduling has to consider several system
constraints:
 A commercial heavy vehicle must guarantee a minimal avail-
ability between two maintenance stops. This constraint sup-
poses that a minimal time d must be respected between two
consecutive planned stops and that the time between two
occurrences of the same operation has to be greater than d.
 Maintenance preparation and organization requires a minimal
time dmin . This constraint supposes that the time between the
current date and the next maintenance stop has to be superior
than dmin .
2.3. Aim of the maintenance planning optimization
Our aim is to group several maintenance operations at the same
time to reduce the maintenance cost.
If m operations i are maintained at their individual optimal

times yi on a nite time interval on HP, the maintenance cost J1 will
be the sum of m set-up costs S and the specic costs si .
X
m
J1 si yi m  S
i1
Suppose that it exists a grouping structure SGk with u groups
Gj ,j A f1, . . . ,ug of maintenance operations on HP. The maintenance
Fig. 3. Adaptive maintenance policy.
cost J2 on HP will be decomposed of u set-up costs S and the specic
costs si .
u X
X
J2 si tG j u  S 6
j 1 i A Gj
with tG j the optimal maintenance date of the group Gj.
For each group Gj of Z components, we save a cost CGj :
X 
CGj Z1  S si tG j si yi 7
i A Gj

where si tG j si yi is the additional cost when the operation i is
executed at tG j instead of yi .

Maintenance optimization aims at nding the grouping struc-
ture with a minimal maintenance cost J2 on a nite horizon HP.
3. Algorithm of the adaptive maintenance policy
In this section, we propose a method to provide an optimized,
dynamic and well-suited maintenance planning for a multi-com-
ponents system like as for instance commercial heavy vehicle. This
method uses degradation models with a maintenance optimization
using a rolling horizon.
At each decision time Tk , the procedure is running through
4 steps, see (Fig. 3):
 estimation of failure probability function;
 individual maintenance optimization;
 grouping maintenance optimization;
 decision step and maintenance planning update.
3.1. Step 1: estimation of failure probability function
This step aims at estimating the component failure probability
from the observed degradation level.
For each maintenance operation i, component degradation level
z0i is retrieved at each inspection date Tk. The degradation model
Gaai , bi can be used to estimate the future component degradation
from the measure Zi(Tk) z0i .
Failure probability function can be computed using Eq. (3):
5 Gai t,Zi;failure z0i bi
Fi tjz0i , 8t w  e,w A N=w  e Z Tk
Gai t
The adaptive scheduling is based on the updated component
failure probability function at each inspection date Tk. Thanks to
 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610 605

these functions, the optimal dates of maintenance operations can previously computed (see Fig. 5):
be computed according to the chosen maintenance policy and the  

additional costs can be evaluated if the maintenance rules are not HP 0, max yi 11
i A f1,...,ng
respected.
The vehicle maintenance plan is updated at each inspection date With this denition, the n components of the system are taken into
Tk. The time origin is re-scheduled at t 0 to simplify the notations. account for the maintenance decisions. Moreover, the complexity
time of grouping computation is reduced with this nite horizon.
3.2. Step 2: individual optimization Maintenance cost optimization is then performed on this
horizon HP.
In this step, the aims are at:
3.2.3. Incorporating other maintenance operation occurrences
 identifying the optimal maintenance date of each operation, In practice, a system is composed of components which wear
 dening the scheduling horizon HP, with different degradation speeds. For example, engine oil has to be
 determining the maintenance operation to schedule on the changed more frequently than driving belt on a commercial heavy
horizon HP, vehicle. However, the scheduling horizon HP covers maintenance
 building the additional cost function of each maintenance operations of the n system components. Several occurrences of
operation. maintenance operations have to be scheduled on this horizon for
components with fast degradation speed.
For the rth occurrence of operation i, the maintenance date
3.2.1. Computing the optimal maintenance dates yri ,r Z2 is dened using the optimal maintenance date yi of operation

Let us dene yi the optimal maintenance date of operation i. On i and the nominal replacement age xni of the associated component.
the scheduling horizon, it is supposed that maintenance decisions Since cost optimization is performed on the horizon HP, we
are stationary and are updated when short-term information is consider the occurrences of operations which are scheduled before


available. yi represents the date at which the mean maintenance maxi A f1,...,ng yi .
cost of operation i per time unit on a innite horizon, noted Ci , is yri r Z2 veries (see Fig. 6):
minimal (see Fig. 4). For an age-replacement policy [3,17], this yri yi r1  xi 12
asymptotic cost is given by
  with
Q (
S CPi bi  1 t1 0
l 0 Fi ljzi rZ2
0
Ci tjzi P Q , 8t w  e,w A N 8 r
1 tj 2 lj2

F tjz0i
0 i
maxyi rmaxi A f1,...,ng yi

with bi CCi CPi The date yi is deduced from the following
equation: 3.2.4. Building the penalty cost function
To nd the best balance between reducing the useful life of some
dCi  0 components and increasing the failure probability of the others, we
y jz 0 9
dt i i introduce the penalty functions (Fig. 7).
n
Note xi the nominal and optimal replacement age of component A penalty function hi evaluates the expected additional cost of
when it is new. Optimal asymptotic maintenance cost of operation i shifting the maintenance time from the optimal maintenance date
is dened by yi . The detailed procedure to compute these penalty functions is
given in [7,21].
Ci Ci xi jz0i 0 10
The penalty function hi associated to operation i depends on:

3.2.2. Dening the scheduling horizon  the optimal maintenance date yi ,
Scheduling horizon HP is dened according to the current  the preventive and corrective replacement cost of the operation

inspection date and the optimal maintenance dates yi A f1,...,ng i respectively CPi and CCi ,

Fig. 4. Optimal maintenance date determination.

Fig. 5. Scheduling horizon HP denition.

Fig. 6. Determination of maintenance dates on the scheduling horizon HP.

606 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610

Fig. 7. Penalty cost of a component whose deterioration process follows a Gamma process Ga(2,1) with maintenance costs S 20, CPi 10 and CCi 90.

Fig. 8. Optimized maintenance operation grouping with operational constraints.

 the failure probability of the component Fi tjz0i , We suppose that the optimal maintenance dates are sorted in
 the survival probability of the component Rtjz0i 1Fi tjz0i . increasing order and noted tni with i A f1, . . . ,mg where m represents
the maintenance operation number to schedule on the horizon HP.
The penalty function hi of the rst occurrence of a maintenance We dene HGu ti the penalty function of the group Gu with u A N
operation i is dened as [7,21] when the operations i A Gu are executed at the date ti ti Di t
8P
0
h
 Qq1 
i instead of the date tni . Di t is the delay or advance time from the
>
< q k 1 e  Ci Fi yi qejz0i :bi  p k 1 Ri yi pejz0i , k o0

hi yi ke Pk h i optimal maintenance date tni . For a maintenance group Gu, the
> Q
: q 1 Fi yi q  ejz0i  bi e  Ci  q1
  0
p 1 Ri yi p  ejzi , k Z0 optimal replacement date tG u is dened by
!
13 X
 
HGu tGu HGu min hi t 16
t
with the empty product equal to 1. i A Gu
We suppose that the previous maintenance operation is exe-
cuted at its optimal maintenance date. According to this assump- If the maintenance operations i A Gu are executed at the date tG u , the
tion, we build the penalty cost function of the rth occurrence which saving equals the difference between the saved set-up costs thanks
veries: to the maintenance grouping and the total penalty cost due to the
8 early and delayed replacements. For the group Gu, the saving QGu
> 1, 8kr n
>
> P0
>
h Qq1 i veries at the date tG u the following property:
>
< q k 1 e  Ci Fi xi q  e  bi p k 1 Ri xi p:e , 8n o ko 0
r
hri yi ke
> 0, k0
QGu tG u cardGu 1  SHG u 17
>
> h i
>
> P Q
: kq 1 Fi xi q  e  bi e  Ci q1
p 1 Ri xi p  e ,

8k4 1 If the saving is positive then the group Gu is considered as cost-efcient.
14 The aim is to nd the grouping structure SGk, which is cost-
efcient and which minimizes the system maintenance cost on the
with n the oor of r1  xi =e. scheduling horizon HP at each inspection date Tk.
In failure case, the penalty function hi of the failed component is Dekker et al. [7] developed an algorithm to deliver the grouping
dened as structure with only one occurrence of operation on the scheduling
(
0, si t 0 horizon. This structure groups operations whose optimal main-
hi t 15 tenance dates are consecutive. Wildeman [21] enhanced this
1, 8t 40
algorithm in reducing the computation complexity.
With this assumption, opportunistic maintenance operation could We adapt this algorithm to nd heuristically the optimal
be scheduled during the system immobilization time. grouping structure on the scheduling horizon HP. This adapted
algorithm veries the following constraints, see Fig. 8:
3.3. Step 3: grouping maintenance optimization
 between two consecutive maintenance stops, the system has to
Step 3 aims at grouping the maintenance operations from the guarantee a minimal availability time d,
previous step to minimize the system maintenance cost on the  grouping several occurrences of the same operation is
scheduling horizon HP. forbidden,
 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610 607

 cost optimization is frozen when the preparation maintenance maintenance group Gn1 are xed. The maintenance planning is then
time dmin is reached. updated at the date D1 tG1 .

For each operation i, we dene interval Ii in which the main-

tenance execution is cost-effective. This date interval veries this
property:
Ii ti Dti ,ti Dti 
with Dti and Dti are, respectively, the smallest and the highest
solution of the equation hi ti Dti S 0. Dekker et al. [7] showed
that a maintenance group Gu can be part of an optimal grouping
structure if the intersection of date interval Ii A Gu is not empty.
Moreover the optimal execution date tG belongs to the intersection
T
i A Gu Ii .
A group Gu fi, . . . ,jg with i o j could be part of the optimal
grouping structure with the consecutive operations if it satises to
the following properties:
T the cycle length Tcycle as
 i A G Ii a|,
u
 the maintenance operations which belong to Gu must be
different.
4. Application
4.1. Numerical experiments
18
Consider a system with three deteriorating components. Time is
discretized with a period e which is taken equal to 1. Suppose that
the component degradation process can be modelled by a Gamma
process with xed parameters: shape parameter ai and scale
parameter bi . Component parameters are dened in Table 1.
Suppose that the availability time and the minimal time to plan
maintenance operation dmin equals 10.
The maintenance cost can be evaluated using stochastic simula-
tion. The asymptotic mean maintenance cost C depends on the set-
up costs, the maintenance cost s at each maintenance stop p and
P
u  S up 1 sDp
C 20
Tcycle

When Gu veries these assumptions, the maximal saving QGu is with u the number of maintenance stops on the cycle length Tcycle
X
evaluated. The same computation is performed for the mainte- sDp si Dp 21
nance groups Gu1 fi 1, . . . ,jg and Gu2 fi, . . . ,j1g. i A Gp

n
 If QG is smaller than QG or QG , then the maintenance group Gu with Gp the maintenance group, which executed at the date Dp and
u u1 u2
(
cannot be part of the optimal structure because there are CPi in case of preventive replacement
subsets of the group Gu whose saving is higher than the saving si Dp C in case of corrective replacement 22
Ci
QGu , [7].
 Else Gu can be part of the optimal grouping structure. Fig. 10 presents several simulated paths of the mean maintenance
cost per time unit for the considered system on which the adaptive
This algorithm delivers the list of maintenance groups which policy is applied with an inspection period t equal to 6. The mean
could be part of the optimal grouping structure. Maintenance maintenance cost per time unit tends to an asymptotic value, which
groups are dened with their optimal maintenance date and the is noted C2 t. Note C1 the asymptotic mean maintenance cost per
associated saving. The optimal grouping structure SGk is dened time unit of the studied system with the proposed scheduling
with the maintenance groups which maximize the total saving Q
and veries the operational constraint. The total saving Q is the sum Table 1
of the group savings QGu on the scheduling horizon HP: Component deterioration parameters.
X
Q QGu 19 Component i ai bi Ei Vari Zi,failure CPi CC i
Gu A SGk
System 1 1 1 1 1 1 100 80 980
Note tG p , the pth planned maintenance date computed by the 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 1 100 80 980
algorithm and Gp, the maintenance group which is executed at this 3 2 2 2 1 100 80 980
date (see Fig. 8). System 2 1 2E  1 4E  2 1 5 100 80 980
2 3E  1 6E  2 1.5 5 100 80 980
3.4. Step 4: update and decision 3 4E  1 5E  2 2 5 100 80 980

System 3 1 1E  1 1E  2 1 10 100 80 980

The previous step delivers the maintenance planning on the 2 15E  2 15E  3 1.5 10 100 80 980
3 2E  1 2E  2 2 10 100 80 980
scheduling horizon HP. Since the component degradation informa-
tion is retrieved at each inspection date, the process is repeated at System 4 1 5E  2 25E  4 1 20 100 80 980
the next inspection date and so on as illustrate in Fig. 9. The 2 75E  3 375E  5 1.5 20 100 80 980
3 1E  1 5E  3 2 20 100 80 980
maintenance planning is then dynamic (thanks to the update) and
adaptive since it is based on the current component degradation System 5 1 33E  3 11E  4 1 30 100 80 980
2 5E  2 16E  4 1.5 30 100 80 980
levels.
3 66E  3 22E  4 2 30 100 80 980
A message is sent to the user and to the maintenance team at the
workshop when the time between the current inspection and the System 6 1 25E  3 625E  6 1 40 100 80 980
2 375E  4 937E  6 1.5 40 100 80 980
rst planned maintenance date tG1 reaches the maintenance 3 5E  2 125E  5 2 40 100 80 980
preparation time dmin , see Fig. 9. Afterwards the date tG1 and the

Fig. 9. Maintenance plan update.

608 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610
Fig. 10. Maintenance cost per time unit with an adaptive maintenance policy applied on the studied system with an inspection period t which is equal to 6.
Fig. 11. Inspection period inuence on the asymptotic maintenance cost per time
unitC1 the asymptotic mean maintenance cost per time unit with the classical
dynamic policyC2 the asymptotic mean maintenance cost per time unit with the
adaptive maintenance policy.
method without component degradation information. The latter
policy represents the classical dynamic maintenance policy, i.e. the
rolling horizon method presented in [20,21].
C1 and C2 t are estimated Using Monte-Carlo simulation and
are represented in Fig. 11 for the considered system.
Without component degradation information, the maintenance
planning can not be updated and the maintenance cost C1 remains
always higher than the maintenance costs C2 t. The more the system
is inspected, the cheaper the system maintenance cost is and short-
term information can be used to reduce the system maintenance cost.
Note, however, that we do not take into account the monitoring cost in
our cost function. The difference between C1 and C2 t can then be
used to weigh the value of the short-term information, and to decide
wether one should invest in monitoring devices.
Fig. 12 illustrates the inuence of increment variance of
deterioration process on the potential cost saving in percentage
with an adaptive maintenance policy compared to the classical
dynamic policy with an inspection period equal to 1. Clearly the
adaptive policy is more cost-efcient than the classical dynamic
policy. In the rst phase, the saving cost increases with the
Fig. 12. Percentage of the maximal estimated saving costs with the adaptive
maintenance policy compared to the classical dynamic policy with respect to the
variance of deterioration process increments with the inspection period equal to 1.
increment variance. Even if the saving cost is always cost-efcient,
it decreases in the second phase. In this case, the inspection period
is too high to follow accurately the deterioration component level.
It is then necessary to determine the optimal inspection frequency
according to the component degradation properties to maximize
the saving cost with an adaptive maintenance policy.
The obtained saving cost represents the investment limit that
provides an adaptive maintenance planning.
4.2. Practical issues for a commercial heavy vehicle
This section aims at pointing the issues when the adaptive
scheduling method is applied on a commercial heavy vehicles. The
adaptive method supposes that the system is composed of components
which can be monitored. Maintenance actions are decided according to
the degradation level of components. However, in practice, it is difcult
to monitor all system components. Even if automatic inspections can
provide degradation information on component, this type of inspection
assumes a specic instrumentation for each component and a robust
communication system. If there is available specic instrumentation, it
could be expensive in vehicle conception phase. Conception cost will
 K. Bouvard et al. / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 96 (2011) 601610
increase with the multiplication of specic instrumentation and
commercial heavy vehicle will be more expensive. It is then not
realistic both from a technological and an economical point of view
to consider that all vehicle components are monitored.
Accordingly, the main practical issue is that the commercial
heavy vehicle has to be maintained according to different policies:
 Some vehicle components are replaced when they reach their
optimal operational age yi . This age is specied by suppliers and
maintained by an age-based operation.
 Others vehicle components, which can be monitored, are
maintained according to their degradation condition.
In this part, we propose an adaptation of the adaptive policy which
was previously presented: Step 1 of the adaptive method considers
only the second class of components. Steps 3 and 4 are running in
the same way as presented in Sections 3.3 and 3.4. To take account
of the applicative constraints, we need to introduce additional
assumptions to build the penalty cost function of operations in step
2. These assumptions on the penalty cost function are developed
according to the type of component in the following sections.
4.2.1. Age-based operation

Only the optimal operational age yi is available for components
which follow an age-based policy. No lifetime law is available. In
this case, we suppose that the penalty cost function of this age-
based operation i decreases linearly from the preventive replace-
ment cost CPi to 0 between the last replacement time and the time

when the maintained component reach yi . No penalty cost is added
when the component is maintained at its optimal operational age
yi . Thanks to these assumptions, the age-based operations can be
brought forward since suppliers guarantee that the components

run properly before their optimal operational age yi . However, no
information about reliability component is available after the age
yi . It is then better to avoid a maintenance delay for this type of
components. The penalty cost function of this age-based operation i
is assumed to be increasing from 0 to the immobilization vehicle
cost, noted Cimmo. This cost Cimmo represents all costs which are
imputed for an unscheduled vehicle stop. The penalty function hi of
an age-based operation i veries:
8 grouping decision rule. Dynamic maintenance grouping is per-
< S CPi ke,
> 
8k A N=yi r ke r 0

e
hi yi k xi
>
: SC
immo, 8k A N=ke 4 0
Fig. 13 illustrates the basic form of the penalty function of an age-
based maintenance operation.
Fig. 13. Penalty cost function of an age-based maintenance operation.
609
4.2.2. Condition-based operation
For monitored components, we suppose that the penalty cost
function is expressed according to the Eq. (14) and depends on:
 the optimal maintenance date yi ,
 the preventive and corrective replacement costs of the opera-
tion i, respectively, CPi and CCi ,
 the failure probability of the component Fi tjz0i ,
 the survival probability of the component Ri tjz0i 1Fi tjz0i ,
computed from step 1 (Section 3.1).
Thanks to these assumptions, it could be possible to bring forward
and delay the maintenance execution from the optimal mainte-
nance date.
However, the corrective replacement cost CCi is very difcult to
evaluate in practice. This cost represents the cost when the
component which is maintained by the operation i fails and it is
unthinkable to leave a failed component on the vehicle in order to
compute its corrective cost! The idea is to link the component
corrective cost with the vehicle immobilization cost Cimmo. A pre-
liminary work aims at classifying vehicle components, which are
based according to their degradation level, according to their
impact level on the vehicle immobilization. If a component fails
and brings immediately vehicle to a standstill, its impact level is the
highest. On the contrary, the components which do not provoke
immediately vehicle immobilization have a lower impact level. The
more critical the component is for the risk of vehicle immobiliza-
tion, the higher the corrective replacement cost is. Then a relation-
ship between the preventive component replacement cost CPi , the
component impact level on vehicle immobilization and the vehicle
immobilization cost Cimmo is used to compute the component
corrective replacement cost CCi .
Another issue is to evaluate the vehicle immobilization cost.
This cost depends on several operational parameters like the
customer activity, the market where the vehicle runsyand all
these contributions are often not easy to quantify in practice.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we propose an adaptive and dynamic method to
schedule maintenance operations of a multi-component system
using online condition monitoring information in the maintenance
formed to optimize the maintenance costs on a rolling horizon
23 and it is shown on numerical examples that this approach allows
for cost savings which can justies the decision of investing in
condition monitoring devices and system, and to switch to more
dynamic maintenance plans.
In this perspective, a European FP7 project Maintenance On
Demand started in September 2009, which deals with the main-
tenance issues for commercial heavy vehicles [2]. The aim is to
schedule maintenance operation using this kind of adaptive
approach, while further incorporating other operational and busi-
ness constraints. Moreover, the component deterioration models
will be performed using collected wear data and covariates.
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