A general solution of the preventive maintenance problem when data are right-censored

In this paper, we suggest a new approach to solve the preventive maintenance problem, when available data are right-censored. The new approach is based on fitting a member of a new family of distributions, recently introduced, where the distribution fitting procedures use partial moments of first or first and second degree only. The effectiveness of the new approach under various distribution assumptions is demonstrated. It is shown that the partial distribution data, available in the form of censored observations, do not detract meaningfully from the optimality of the derived solution.