A quadratic reproduction based Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm to minimize periodic preventive maintenance cost for series-parallel systems

- Developing a model for the periodic preventive maintenance of series-parallel system.
- Proposing a modified Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm.
- Applying a single stage process through the proposed algorithm due to hold solutions with various combinations.
- Conducting a comprehensive calibration for input parameters.

This study deals with the problem of minimizing periodic Preventive Maintenance (PM) for series-parallel systems. The number of preventive maintenance activities for each component in series-parallel system would be specified with respect to reliability constraint for the whole system. An efficient meta-heuristic algorithm called IWO is used to attain an optimal or a near-optimal solution through a modification in the stage of allocating the new number of generation. Although some researchers have made great attempts at introducing an efficient algorithm to solve this NP-hard problem, all methods must be run in a two-stage process. The first stage for specifying the best combination of components and the second stage for obtaining a good solution to the specified combination in the first stage. This paper intends to apply a single stage process through a novel IWO algorithm to hold solutions with various combinations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by comparing with other algorithms. The results of the computational experiments are statistically discussed and indicate that the proposed IWO outperforms the other algorithms.