Scheduling of maintenance activities in a sugar industry using simulation

This study has been carried out in a sugar industry located in Tamil Nadu, India. During the production period, the plant is shut down for a couple of shifts for periodic overhauling, corrective and minor preventive maintenance activities, and inspections. This periodic shutdown is necessary because in the event of breakdown of machines, the plant is forced to crush the same amount of cane (that would have been crushed during the breakdown period) towards the end of the season when the recovery factor is low. The problem is to determine the frequency of this periodic shutdown maintenance in order to minimize the downtime losses that are time-dependent. A simulation model is developed towards this endeavor. © 1993.