Integrated production, sampling quality control and maintenance of deteriorating production systems with AOQL constraint

• Published in: Omega (Oxford) 2016-06, Vol.61, p.110-126
• Main Authors: Bouslah, B., Gharbi, A., Pellerin, R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acceptance sampling plan; Cost control; Dynamic process deterioration; Inventory management; Lot sizing; Operations research; Preventive maintenance; Production management; Production/inventory control; Quality control; Simulation-based optimization; Stochastic models; Studies
• ISSN: 0305-0483; 1873-5274
• DOI: 10.1016/j.omega.2015.07.012

This paper considers the problem of integrated production, preventive maintenance and quality control for a stochastic production system subject to both reliability and quality deteriorations. A make-to-stock production strategy is used to provide protection to the serviceable stock against uncertainties. The quality control is performed using a single acceptance sampling plan by attributes. The preventive maintenance strategy consists in carrying out an imperfect maintenance as a part of the setup activity at the beginning of each lot production, while a major maintenance (overhaul) is undertaken once the proportion of defectives in a rejected lot reaches or exceeds a given threshold. The main objective of this study is to jointly optimize the production lot size, the inventory threshold, the sampling plan parameters and the overhaul threshold by minimizing the total incurred cost. To meet customer requirements, the optimization problem is subject to a specified constraint on the average outgoing quality limit (AOQL). A stochastic mathematical model is developed and solved using a simulation-based optimization approach. Numerical examples and thorough sensitivity analyses are provided to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed integrated model. Compared with the 100% inspection policy which is widely used in the literature on integrated production, maintenance and quality control, the results obtained show that an economic design of acceptance sampling in such an integrated context can lead to important cost savings of more than 20%. •We study the joint design of production, quality and maintenance control policies.•The production system is subject to both reliability and quality deteriorations.•An outgoing quality constraint is considered.•A quality information feedback is incorporated into the maintenance decision-making process.•Significant cost savings are achievable compared to existing models in the literature.