Repair strategies in an uncertain environment: Markov decision process approach

This paper deals with repair strategies that maximize the time until a catastrophic event, that is, when there is a vital need for equipment, and the equipment fails to function. We examine the case where the need for the equipment varies over time according to a Markov chain. This means that the environment can be in different states, each with their own probability of the initiating event occurring. We model the form of the optimal policy for repair under this uncertain environment by Markov decision processes.