Assets reliability is a key issue to consider in the maintenance management policy and given its importance several estimation methods and models have been proposed within the reliability engineering discipline. However, these models involve certain assumptions which are the source of different uncertainties inherent to the estimations. An important source of uncertainty is the operational context in which the assets operate and how it affects the different failures. Therefore, this paper contributes to the reduction of the uncertainty coming from the operational context with the proposal of a novel method and its validation through a case study. The proposed model specifically addresses changes in the operational context by implementing dynamic capabilities in a new conception of the Proportional Hazards Model. It also allows to model interactions among working environment variables as well as hidden phenomena thanks to the integration within the model of artificial neural network methods.

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Maheut, JPD.; Besga, JM.; Uribetsebarria, J.; García Sabater, JP. (2014). A decision support system for modelling and implementing the supply network configuration and operations scheduling problem in the machine tool industry. Production Planning and Control. 25 (8) This paper presents a decision support system to simultaneously solve the supply network configuration problem and the operations scheduling problem for the machine tool industry. A novel database structure, which is able to consider alternative operations and alternative bills of material, has been used. An algorithm for complete enumeration to determine all the feasible solutions using stroke graphs is introduced. A multiagent-based simulator evaluates the different key performance indicators that the supply network deals with for each alternative solution (e.g., workload, profits, delivery times, etc.) to determine that "satisficed" by the collaborative decision making among its members. A case study based on a Spanish company that assembles highly customized machines and tools in several European plants is considered. From the experiments results based on data linked to this industry it will be demonstrated that the tool is potentially useful for stakeholders and for the central decision maker to make decisions collaboratively in a multisite context case.