A two-phase inspection policy with imperfect testing

This paper presents an inspection policy to detect failures of a single component system that remain hidden otherwise. Inspection reveals whether the unit is in good or failed state. The possibility of non perfect testing is assumed, thus, successive inspections may fail detecting a failure or result in a false alarm. The occurrence of false alarms is reported in optical fire detectors and inspection of printing circuit boards which are on the basis of electronic systems. A two-phase inspection schedule takes into account the changes in component's aging. The system may undergo different inspection frequencies to detect both early failures or those due to the natural deterioration in the system as time goes by. The examples reveal the advantages of a two-phase inspection when comparing with the unique interval inspection. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.