Maintenance and improvement of a production process with random deterioration

The setting for this research is a continuous time production system in which the process may shift from an in-control state to an out-of-control state following an exponential distribution. We derive models that incorporate the cost for process improvement efforts as well as the cost of operating the production system. The various impacts of efforts of process improvement in the production system are investigated to determine their effects on system performance and on inspection and maintenance schedules. Using computational experiments, we examine some relationships between the system parameters and decision variables and draw useful insights for decision making.