Currently, engineers should to deal with conflicting objectives, especially concerning safety and economics constraints. It is necessary to take into account performance indicators like reliability and availability coupled with economic criteria such as the costs of acquisition, maintenance and plant downtime. This paper aims at bringing up a rational process of selecting the optimal configuration of the system in the preliminary design phase considering these conflicting indicators.
Here, it is proposed a coupled approach using Monte Carlo Simulation and Genetic Algorithms to define the system configuration and the time interval between preventive maintenances in order to maximize the availability and the expected profit with the system operation considering possible constraints about the number of maintenance teams.
The approach proposed in this paper has shown to be promising for solving complex system design related to realistic scenarios in which conflicting performance and economic objectives must be taken into account.
