Health state evaluation of an item: A general framework and graphical representation

This paper presents a general theoretical framework to evaluate the health state of an item based on condition monitoring information. The item's health state is defined in terms of its relative health level and overall health level. The former is evaluated based on the relative magnitude of the composite covariate and the latter is evaluated using a fractile life of the residual life distribution at the decision instant. In addition, a method is developed to graphically represent the degradation model, failure threshold model, and the observation history of the composite covariate. As a result, the health state of the monitored item can be intuitively presented and the evaluated result can be subsequently used in a condition-based maintenance optimization decision model, which is amenable to computer modeling. A numerical example is included to illustrate the proposed approach and its appropriateness.