A new approach for solving repair limit problems

The usual approach to finding optimal repair limits on failure of a component is to use a finite state approximation Markov Decision Process (MDP). In this paper an alternative approach is introduced. Assuming a stochastically increasing repair cost, the optimum solution is shown to satisfy a certain two-point boundary condition, first order differential equation. An asymptotic formula for the optimal repair limit function is derived. Numerical solutions are obtained for some Weibull and Special Erlang distributed time to failure distributions. The structural form of the repair limit function results in a solution procedure which is several orders of magnitude faster than is achievable using previous methods.