A two-stage prognosis model in condition based maintenance

We often observe in practice that the life of a piece of production equipment can be divided into two stages. The first stage is referred to as the normal working stage where no significant deviation from the normal operating state is observed. The second stage is called the failure delay period, since a defect may be initiated, and progressively develop into an actual failure, i.e., the equipment is in a defective stage but still working during this stage. With the help of condition monitoring, hidden defects already present in the equipment may be detected, but for maintenance planning purposes, the prediction of the initiation point of the second stage, and more importantly, the residual life thereafter is important. This paper reports on the development of a probability model to predict the initiation point of the second stage and the remaining life based on available condition monitoring information. The method for model parameters estimation is discussed and applied to real data.