Optimizing replacement policy for a cold-standby system with waiting repair times

This paper presents the formulas of the expected long-run cost per unit time for a cold-standby system composed of two identical components with perfect switching. When a component fails, a repairman will be called in to bring the component back to a certain working state. The time to repair is composed of two different time periods: waiting time and real repair time. The waiting time starts from the failure of a component to the start of repair, and the real repair time is the time between the start to repair and the completion of the repair. We also assume that the time to repair can either include only real repair time with a probability p, or include both waiting and real repair times with a probability 1 − p. Special cases are discussed when both working times and real repair times are assumed to be geometric processes, and the waiting time is assumed to be a renewal process. The expected long-run cost per unit time is derived and a numerical example is given to demonstrate the usefulness of the derived expression.