Preventive maintenance and upgrade system: Optimizing the whole performance system by components' replacement or rearrangement

A decision-making model for reassembling different deteriorating subsystems and components of a complex system from used and new parts is proposed. The objective is to find the proper reassembly policies in a period of time so as to maximize the systems' overall performance values, under limited budget, and reassembly and compatibility constraints. Environmental gains are incurred from these policies, since the used components' life cycle, at least in some cases, is extended instead of ending by entering the waste stream. A stochastic dynamic programming approach is proposed, and an example in the case of personal computers is presented.