Optimal Control Policy for Replacements Involving Two Machines and One Repairman

There has been a great deal of research dealing with the optimal replacement of stochastically deteriorating equipment and research in queueing systems with a finite calling population. However. there has been a lack of research which combines these two areas to deal with optimal replacement for a fixed number of machines and a limited number of repairmen. In this research, an optimal control policy for replacement involving two machines and one repairman is developed by investigating a class of age replacement policies in the context of controlling a G/M/1 queueing system with a finite calling population. The control policy to be imposed on this problem is an age-dependent control policy, described by the control limit $t^{\ast}$. The control limit is operational only when the repairman is idle; that is. if both machines are working, as soon as a machine reaches the age $t^{\ast}$ it is taken out of service for replacememt. We obtain the ${\epsilon}$-optimal control age which will minimize the long-run average system cost. An algorithm is developed that is applicable to general failure time distributions and cost functions. The algorithm does not require the condition of unimodality for implementation.