Machine repair problem in multistage systems

The classic machine repair problem is extended to the case where a number of different machines are arranged in the sequence of operation. The steady-state availability of the system with a series of operating machines is maximized under some constraints such as total cost, available space. In order to find the optimal numbers of spare units and repair channels for each operating machine, the problem is formulated as non-linear integer programming (NLIP) problem and an efficient algorithm, which is a natural extension of the new Lawler-Bell algorithm of Sasaki et al., is used to solve the NLIP problem. A numerical example is given to illustrate the algorithm. [In Korean.]