A near-exact minimum for total expected cost per unit of time in periodically inspected systems
by
J. Rodrigues Dias
Department of Mathematics, University of Évora, Portugal

In this paper we present new and simple expressions for obtaining the minimum total expected cost per unit of time in a system, which needs to be inspected to know its operation state, using perfect and periodic inspections. Considering the system expected lifetime, the cost of each inspection and the cost per unit of time of imperfect operation, using recently obtained expressions for the inspection period, some results are presented and analysed. In addition, some numerical results prove that we have nearly optimal solutions.

Date received: July 13, 2006