AN OPTIMAL GEOMETRIC PROCESS MODEL FOR A COLD STANDBY REPAIRABLE SYSTEM

In this paper a cold standby repairable system consisting of two ident ical components and one repairman is studied. Assume that each compone nt after repair is not 'as good as new'. Under this assumption, by usi ng a geometric process, we consider a replacement policy N based on th e number of repairs of component 1. Our problem is to determine an opt imal replacement policy N such that the long-run expected reward per unit time is maximized. The explicit expression of the long-run expect ed reward per unit time is derived and the corresponding optimal repai r replacement policy can be determined analytically or numerically. Fi nally, a numerical example is given. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.