Optimally designed renewal reward processes: General framework and applications (Q1084770)

For physical and organizational systems which are regenerative in nature, certain mechanisms may be utilized to effect the time between regenerations. Those scenarios give rise to renewal processes with renewal distributions that are controllable at cost. We provide a unifying framework for optimal design of such processes in situations where certain parameter(s) of the renewal distributions can be manipulated at cost. Following the formulation of the general problem and discussion of some of its properties, we discuss three application areas where such situations arise. Those involve stochastic dispatching, labour turnover control, and design of repairable systems.