Integrated production and preventive maintenance scheduling for a single machine with failure uncertainty

• We propose a joint model of production scheduling and PM planning for single machine.
• Proactive buffer times are planned considering unexpected breakdowns.
• Genetic algorithm is developed based on the analysis on problem properties.
• Both robustness and stability of the obtained initial plan are demonstrated.

This paper addresses the problem of finding a robust and stable schedule for a single machine with availability constraints. The machine suffers unexpected breakdowns and follows the Weibull failure function. A joint model for integrating run-based preventive maintenance (PM) into the production scheduling problem is proposed, in which the sequence of jobs, the PM times and the planned completion times of jobs are proactively determined simultaneously. Aiming at optimizing the bi-objective of system robustness and stability, a genetic algorithm based on the properties of the optimal schedule is proposed. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is efficient and effective under practical problem sizes. In addition, the impact of degree of uncertainty on the performance and the tradeoff between robustness and stability are explored in detail.