A multicriteria approach to the selection of preventive maintenance intervals

This paper discusses the problem of determining optimal preventive-maintenance intervals for components in a production system. The maintenance planning of a paper factory is taken as a case study. The traditional approach of a single objective function for this type of problem is described, and some of the disadvantages of taking such a single objective are discussed. The paper proposes a new model incorporating multiple criteria. For the case study, two criteria, expected costs and reliability, are taken into consideration. The MCDM method PROMETHEE is used to solve the problem. Sensitivity analysis is carried out for the variations in the subjective weights assigned to the criteria.