A methodology for optimising maintenance and replacement of construction equipment

Mathematical optimisation models are seldom used in making maintenance decisions regarding construction equipment. The reason for this could be, simply, the lack of such models for maintenance of construction equipment compared to those in other areas such as industrial equipment- maintenance. Most of the general mathematical models proposed for industrial equipment maintenance could not be used for construction equipment due to the current state of poor record keeping and narrowly defined maintenance policies currently existing in construction equipment companies. However, some optimisation techniques, such as Simulation, seem to have potential applications in optimising certain maintenance activities of construction equipment. Also the willingness of equipment managers to adopt realistic optimisation techniques indicates the current need for research in construction equipment maintenance. In the area of replacement analysis of construction equipment, there exist a number of mathematical models proposed by previous researchers. However, the use of such models in real practice is not significant. This could be due to the fact that those models do not consider several real issues which are most important in making actual replacement decisions regarding construction equipment. In spite of the amount of work done by previous researchers, there exists the need for a more realistic replacement model for construction equipment. The main objective of this research, therefore, was to develop two complementary practical mathematical models, one for maintenance optimisation and the other for replacement analysis of construction equipment ... (continued).