On the Application of Uncertainty Models in Copying Machine Maintenance Problem

The maintenance system is necessary to maintain an efficient production system and reduce the possibility of work being suspended due to breakdown of machines. For every manufacturing company the objective is to produce goods at a profit and this is only achieved by using an effective maintenance system. Maintenance is required for all types of machinery. The copying machine is one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. In this paper, we concern with the maintenance of copying machines. For this purpose, we introduce a multiobjective nonlinear programming model with uncertainty. Data in many real life engineering and economical problems suffer from inexactness. Uncertainty always exists in practical engineering problems. In order to deal with the uncertain optimization problems, fuzzy and stochastic approaches are commonly used to describe the imprecise characteristics. We will treat the problem of concern with three different approaches of uncertainty and compare among them. These approaches are fuzzy programming approach, interval number programming approach and stochastic programming approach. We introduce a numerical example to clarify the proposed method.

Keywords: Maintenance, Copying machine, Multiobjective nonlinear programming, Fuzzy programming, Stochastic programming, Interval number programming.

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