2018 Moscow Workshop on Electronic and Networking Technologies (MWENT)
An Approach for Optimal Maintenance
Planning of Radio Communication Devices
Considering Reliability and Operational Costs
A. Lyubchenko, J. Pacheco, E. Kopytov, S. Lutchenko, V. Maystrenko, Senior Member, IEEE S. Bartosh
1
Abstract—The paper presents an approach for assessment of
recommended preventive maintenance intervals of radio
communications devices due to the reliability of the equipment
and operational costs. This approach is based on the previously
proposed technique that considers as an optimality criterion two
integrated reliability measures, Inherent Availability and
Achieved Availability. The performed research has shown that
the range of rational periodicity, which is an interval between
optimal and allowable periodicity, can be rather wide that
requires the application of an additional criterion. In this paper,
we suggest improving the existed optimality criterion by taking
into account operational costs. Consequently, the proposed
approach consists of the improved criterion and simulation
model providing the estimation of the reliability and cost
measures. The results of the performed experiments show that
adding the operational costs as an additional criterion makes it
possible to achieve a doubling reduction of the range for the
assessment of the rational maintenance periodicity.
Index Terms—Inherent availability, achieved availability,
operational costs, maintenance, optimization
I. INTRODUCTION
T he operable state of technological radio communication
(TRC) devices is provided by the maintenance and repair
system (MRS). The MRS system represents a set of
interrelated facilities, documentation, instruments, and
activities required to maintain and restore the equipment
performance, ensure its reliable and safe operation, reduce
equipment-related operational costs and increase its efficiency.
The value of this system cannot be overestimated, as it seems
This work was partially supported by the Regional Government of
“Castilla y León”, Spain, and FEDER founds (Project BU062U16). This
support is gratefully acknowledged.
A. Lyubchenko, Dept. of Applied Economics, University of Burgos,
Burgos, Spain (e-mail: allyubchenko@gmail.com).
J. Pacheco, Dept. of Applied Economics, University of Burgos, Burgos,
Spain (jpacheco@ubu.es).
E. Kopytov, Dept. of Communication and Data Security, Omsk State
Technical University, Omsk, Russian Federation (e-mail:
e.u.kopytov@gmail.com).
S. Lutchenko, Dept. of Communication and Data Security, Omsk State
Technical University, Omsk, Russian Federation (e-mail:
lutchenko_s@inbox.ru).
V. Maystrenko, Dept. of Communication and Data Security, Omsk State
Technical University, Omsk, Russian Federation (e-mail: mva@omgtu.ru).
S. Bartosh, EPAM Systems (e-mail: watmash@mail.ru).
978-1-5386-3498-1/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
to be „a key contributor to profit in a manufacturing or service
providing operation” [1].
The MRS of technological radio communication devices
provides for the following tasks [2]:
– control of technical condition and performance check;
– maintenance;
– scheduled routine maintenance and thorough overhaul;
– preparation of measuring instruments for calibration.
The organization of TRC equipment operation is carried out
in accordance with the schedule for the considered system.
The schedule is a set of rules and recommendations for the
maintenance, which determines the volume and frequency of
preventive measures. The determination and justification of
the maintenance periodicity, as a regulated parameter, is
carried out at the stage of the design and engineering
development by the manufacturer, and can also be adjusted
during the normal operation of the products.
One of the ways to improve the reliability and safety of
TRC devices is the organizational arrangements for routine
Preventive Maintenance (PM). However, the specification of
the recommended PM frequency is not a trivial problem [3],
especially for systems, which are subject to the influence of
different external factors. If the intervals between
maintenances are short, the number of failures decreases and,
accordingly, the costs for TRC devices repairs are reduced;
but at the same time the cost of maintenance increases. If the
maintenance intervals are wider, the number of TRC
equipment failures increases and, accordingly, the costs of
repairs; but at the same time, the cost of maintenance
decreases. The results of the analysis presented in the
paper [4] underline the need to improve the models used for
PM planning of TRC devices. The role of the human factor in
reliable equipment operation of different purpose remains
significant [5, 6, 7]. Therefore, when optimizing the intervals
between maintenance, several criterions must be taken into
account.
Moreover, the analysis of some existed research works
shows that the current tendency in PM intervals optimization
is the application of multicriterion approaches when two or
more indices are used in common for the determination of a
target parameter. In most cases, a joint application of a
reliability index (availability or failure rate) and operational
cost is suggested by the researchers as a multicriterion
technique [8, 9, 10].
2018 Moscow Workshop on Electronic and Networking Technologies (MWENT)

II. IMPROVED APPROACH periodicity, it is necessary to introduce one more optimality

The paper [11] presents a simulation model of the process criterion. According to GOST 27.003-90, if there are several
of operation and preventive maintenance of TRC devices. It limiting factors, then one is chosen among them, based on the
provides the estimation of the Preventive Maintenance (PM) condition that the restriction related to it, in the process of
rational periodicity of communication devices on the basis of reliability improvement, comes before the others. Further, one
the reliability indices regulated by GOST 27.003-90. For the limiting factor is considered, the most common one - the cost
engineering systems of continuous use, the range of reliability of TRC devices operation. Therefore, it is suggested to use the
measures includes Availability Factor and Total cost function as an additional optimality criterion.
Availability Factor . In foreign literature regarding the The process of TRC equipment operation and maintenance
reliability theory [12, 13] these measures are used to be called is represented as random sequence ( ) of transitions from
as the Inherent Availability ( ) and Achieved Availability current state to subsequent one . The state diagram shown
( ), respectively. The subsequent presentation of the material in Fig. 2 corresponds to ( ) process. The diagram nodes
follows this terminology. The dependency curves of the correspond to the following possible states: S1 – operable
mentioned integrated reliability characteristics, and , on state, S2 – misalignment state, S3 – non-operable state, S4 –
PM periodicity are represented by the objective functions preventive maintenance of operable system, S5 – maintenance
of the Inherent Availability ( ) and Achieved of system with misalignment, S6 – latent failure, S7 –
Availability ( ), respectively. maintenance of system being in latent failure, S8 – fictitious
An example of graphs for functions ( ) and ( ), failure.
obtained using the model from [11, 14, 15], are shown in
Fig. 1.
1

0.9999
AI (Tint )
0.9998

0.9997
AA (Tint )
AA (Tint ), AI (Tint )

0.9996

0.9995
AI . A.
0.9994

0.9993

0.9992

0.9991 Fig. 2. State diagram of the process of operation and

0.999
0 500 1000 T 1500
opt
Tint , hours
Fig. 1. Objective functions of the Inherent Availability
( ) and Achieved Availability ( )
The value of the PM rational periodicity was defined as the
minimum between the allowable and optimal periodicity of
preventive maintenance. The value of the allowable
periodicity ( ) is determined as:
= ( . . ),
where is the inverse Inherent Availability function
( ).
The estimation of the optimal periodicity ( ) is carried
out using the expression:
= arg max
Application of this approach provides a wide range of
values, which additional optimization can be carried out on
(Fig. 1). To increase the accuracy of the PM rational
maintenance of repairable radio communication devices
2000 2500 3000 Tall3500 4000
For the purpose of the mathematical description of the
transitions sequence, we used the model of the Markov
processes theory, according to which a sequence of random
transitions can be represented by a Markov chain with
continuous time and discrete state space. The theory of
Markov processes has found wide application in the
formalization of random processes in the field of reliability
engineering [16, 17, 18, 19]. The mandatory condition is the
fulfillment of the Markov property, i.e. the independence of
(1) future from past for the fixed present with respect to the
constant moments of time.
For the considered random process, the stay time is subject
to the exponential law only for the states S1 and S2. In the
remaining states, the time before the next transition is a
constant. In this case, for the final formalization, the model of
the semi-Markov process is applied, for which the Markov
( ). (2) property is valid only at the moments of jump-like transitions.
Further, the process of operation and preventive
maintenance of TRC devices is simulated for time for each
value of the PM periodicity changing with a specified step. At
the same time the collection of statistical data is implemented
2018 Moscow Workshop on Electronic and Networking Technologies (MWENT)
for: 1) the number of transitions to each state; 2) the total
number of transitions; 3) the stay time in each state (sojourn
time). On the basis of the statistical data processing, the
estimations of the Inherent Availability ( ) and Achieved
Availability ( ) functions are calculated [20, 21].
The simulation model and the software proposed in [11,
14, 15, 21] were improved by the introduction of the cost
criterion in order to improve the accuracy of the PM rational
periodicity estimation. For this purpose, on the basis of
statistical data obtained with the help of the algorithms
developed earlier, the cost function was calculated for
different values of the maintenance periodicity. Consequently,
C(T,U) matrix was compiled to determine the costs per unit of
time of a device sojourn time in state i and the cost of the
transition from state i to state j. Consequently, the cost of
sojourn time and the cost of leaving state i is as follows:
=  +  , (3)
where is the duration of stay of a TRC device in the
corresponding states for the considered process; is the
number of transitions from the state i to state j.
The structure of the indicator is the cost of sojourn in
state i and the cost of leaving state i.
The unit costs per a unit of time of a TRC device are as
follows:
= / , (4)
where Tk is the simulation time.
The expression above determines the specific direct
operational costs of the preventive maintenance process. For
the calculation of the values of cost coefficients, the data for
the train radio communication devices within the framework
of the research work [22] were used.
Coefficients C11, C22, C66 include the costs related to an
operation in the normal mode, i.e. these are the costs of
electricity consumed by the radio station.
Coefficients C33, C44, C55, C77, and C88 do not include
the cost of a TRC device being in the corresponding state.
There is a difficulty in estimating coefficient C66
determining the cost of latent failure. The latent failure of a
mobile radio station can result in an accident, for example, a
disruption of the train schedule. This is what also has to be
considered while estimating the false-failure coefficient. The
costs related to the elimination of the failures are comparable
to the train operational losses caused by these failures.
Coefficient C31, which characterizes the transition from
non-operable state S3 to operable S1, takes into account the
costs of repairs, namely the payment of the salary of the repair
staff, the costs of spare parts, and the costs related to the
energy consumed by the equipment used in the repair process.
In calculations, the repair costs are assumed to be a constant
value, since the repair time has a constant regulated value.
Coefficients C41, C43, C46, and C48 allow taking into
account the costs of preventive maintenance of the operable
system, which represent the salary for service staff, the cost of
electricity consumed by the equipment used for maintenance.
Coefficients C51, C53, C56, C58 characterizing the
transition from the state of the maintenance of system with
misalignment S5 to the operable state S1, the non-operable
state S3, the latent failure S6, the fictitious failure S8,
respectively, include the costs of the PM of the misalignment
system, which are the costs of the salary of service staff, the
cost of electricity consumed by the equipment used for
maintenance, and the adjustment costs.
Coefficients C73, C76 characterizing the transition from the
maintenance of system being in latent failure S7 to non-
operable state S3, the state of latent failure S6, respectively,
allows to take into account the costs of the maintenance of the
operable system, which include the salary of the service
specialists, the electricity costs consumed by the equipment
used for the maintenance.
Coefficient C81 characterizes the transition from the
fictitious failure state S8 to the operable state S1. It is
necessary to use it in order to calculate the repair costs, which
in turn include the salary of the repair specialists, the costs of
the spare parts, and the costs of electricity consumed by the
equipment during repair procedures. In calculations, the repair
costs are assumed to be a constant value, while the repair time
has a constant regulated value.
All other transitions do not incur any costs.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The numerical values of the cost coefficients are shown in
Table I. For the calculation of the cost factors values, the data
of the RV-1M radio station module, presented in research
[23], were used.
TABLE I
NUMERICAL VALUES OF COST COEFFICIENTS
Cost Coefficient Cost Coefficient
coefficient value, ruble/hour coefficient value, rubles
С11 0.12 С31 262
С22 0.12 С41, С43, С46, 85.18
С48 85.18
С66 30 С51, С53, С56, 105.55
С58 105.55
С73, С76 85.18
С88 262
The approbation of the improved model was carried out for
the block, which is a part of the RV-1M radio station, with
known values of the necessary input data. The values of input
data for simulation are presented in Table II.
It should be noted that the simulation model used for the
analysis takes less computer time for running the necessary
computational experiments with the specified level of
accuracy due to the application of algorithms for variance
reduction of the obtained statistical data [23].
2018 Moscow Workshop on Electronic and Networking Technologies (MWENT)

TABLE II curves in Fig. 3 and 4 allows assuming that the application of

THE VALUES OF THE SIMULATION MODEL INPUT PARAMETERS
the cost criterion makes it possible to achieve at least a
Input parameter Value
doubling increase of accuracy in estimation of the rational
Rate of misalignments, 1/h 1.85×10-5
maintenance periodicity.
Rate of sudden failures, 1/h 5.64×10-6
Rate of sudden failures of misaligned system, 1/h 2.21×10-6
Testing time, h 1.73
Configuration time, h 1.31
Failure search time, h 3.45
Repair time, h 2.27
Diagnostic Type I error of embedded DD (α1) 0.01
devices (DD)

С̂(Tint )
parameters Type II error of embedded DD (β1) 0.005
Type I error of external DD (α2) 0.02
Type II error of external DD (β2) 0.05
Probability of service staff error 0.126
Allowable value of the inherent availability AI.A. 0.997
Simulation time Tk, h 107
Tint , hours
As a result of the simulation of the operational and Fig. 4. The set of cost functions for different values of latent
maintenance process, the estimations of the Inherent failure cost
Availability ( ), Achieved Availability ( ) and cost
( ) functions were obtained. The corresponding graphs IV. CONCLUSIONS
with common X axis, representing the maintenance Thus, the paper considers an approach for multicriterion
periodicity, are depicted in Fig. 3. As can be seen from the optimization of preventive maintenance periodicity of
obtained graphs, the cost function has an extreme nature, this technological radio communication (TRC) based on the
fact allows to carry out an optimization procedure in order to Inherent Availability, Achieved Availability and cost function.
improve the accuracy of the rational maintenance periodicity Previously proposed simulation model of the process of
assessment. operation and maintenance of TRC equipment has been
improved due to the introduction of the cost criterion. The use
of the algorithms of variance reduction of the statistical data
ÂI (Tint ) has made it possible to lower requisite machine time for
computational procedures. The cost coefficients have been
ÂA(Tint ) analyzed and their numerical values have been proposed for
the module of RV-1M mobile radio station. The set of cost
ÂA(Tint), ÂI (Tint )

functions for various values of the cost coefficient

С̂( Tint )

characterizing latent failures of radio communication devices

has been obtained. The use of the cost function will allow
more precise estimation of rational maintenance periodicity of
С̂( Tint ) the TRC devices, that is the range of values for the estimation
of the recommended value of maintenance periodicity is
reduced by half.

Topt Tall
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engineer at EPAM Systems, Moscow. He
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University in 2011 with the specialty “IT
Alexander Lyubchenko received his B.Sc. and Control in Technical Systems” and
and M.Sc. in Automation and Control from finished postgraduate training program.
Omsk State Transport University, Russia, Sphere of scientific interests – application
in 2007 and 2009, respectively. In 2013, he of statistical methods in computer aided design systems.
got the Cand.Sc. (Ph.D.) degree in
Computer-aided design from Siberian State
Automobile and Highway Academy, Omsk,
Russia. Currently, he is a post-doctorate researcher at the
University of Burgos, Spain.