Optimal policy for the replacement of industrial systems subject to technological obsolescence using genetic algorithm

Abstract

The technological obsolescence of industrial systems is characterized by the existence of challenger units possessing identical functionalities but with improved performance. This paper aims to define a new approach that makes it possible to obtain the optimal number of obsolete industrial systems which should be replaced by new-type units. This approach presents a new point of view compared with previous works available in the literature. The main idea and the originality of our approach is that we apply a genetic algorithm (GA) by considering the failure frequency, the influence of the environment/safety factors of the old-type systems and the purchase/implementation cost of the new-type units. These parameters are introduced in order to optimize this type of replacement in the context of engineering