【Time】10:30am-11:30am, April 22, 2014 (Tuesday) 

【Venue】Room N510 (conference room), Shunde Building 

【Title】 Optimal Maintenance Policies for a Markovian Deteriorating System with Population Heterogeneity 

【Speaker】Dr. Hao Peng, Assistant Professor of Reliability and Maintenance,  Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology. 

【Host】Dr. Kaibo Wang 

【Abstract】We develop a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model to incorporate population heterogeneity when scheduling replacements for a deteriorating system. The single-component system deteriorates over a finite set of condition states according to a Markov chain. The population of spare components that is available for replacements is composed of multiple component types that cannot be distinguished by their exterior appearance, but deteriorate according to different transition matrices. This situation arises, for example, if new components and repaired components are mixed into the population without proper records of their repair history. We provide a set of conditions for which we characterize the structure of the optimal policy that minimizes total expected discounted operating and replacement cost over an infinite horizon. By a numerical experiment, we benchmark the optimal policy against a heuristic policy that neglects population heterogeneity. 

【Bio】Hao Peng is Assistant Professor of Reliability and Maintenance at Eindhoven University of Technology since 2011. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Houston, USA, in 2010. She received her Bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering from Tsinghua University, China, in 2006. She does research on quality and reliability engineering for evolving technologies, as well as optimization for condition-based maintenance. She has currently 7 publication in international referred journals, among which 3 in IEEE Transactions on Reliability and 1 in IIE Transactions. She is associate editor of International Journal of business Analytics. She was awarded the Marie Curie career integration grant from European Commission in 2012. Her research has been supported by National Science Foundation, USA, and Department of Homeland Security, USA. She is associate member of the Beta Research School for Operations Management and Logistics.