Article ID: | iaor20107543 |
Volume: | 180 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 213 |
End Page Number: | 231 |
Publication Date: | Nov 2010 |
Journal: | Annals of Operations Research |
Authors: | Shenfield Alex, Fleming J, Kadirkamanathan Visakan, Allan Jeff |
Keywords: | maintenance, repair & replacement, scheduling, engineering |
The emerging paradigm of Grid Computing provides a powerful platform for the optimisation of complex computer models, such as those used to simulate real-world logistics and supply chain operations. This paper introduces a Grid-based optimisation framework that provides a powerful tool for the optimisation of such computationally intensive objective functions. This framework is then used in the optimisation of maintenance scheduling strategies for fleets of aero-engines, a computationally intensive problem with a high-degree of stochastic noise, achieving substantial improvements in the execution time of the algorithm.