A repair-replacement study for gearboxes using geometric processes

In this study, we employed a geometric process approach to resolve gearbox maintenance problems. The approach is realistic and direct in modelling the characteristics of a deteriorating system such as a gearbox since a decreasing geometric process can model a gearbox's successive operating times and an increasing geometric process can model the corresponding consecutive repair times. First, two test statistics were used to check whether the process was geometric or not. Next, model parameters of the geometric process were estimated using the simple linear regression techniques. Finally, the optimal replacement policy based on minimising the long-run average cost per day was determined for each type of gearbox. © MCB University Press, 0265-671X.