Optimizing Roof Maintenance and Replacement Decisions

Abstract

The objective of this research is to develop a Decision Support System that helps allocation of available funds to optimize roof maintenance strategies. The Decision Support System analyzes different maintenance alternatives available for each roof element and chooses the alternative that maximizes the benefits due to savings resulting from postponing element replacement.

The analysis uses the Life-Cycle Cost to calculate the Reduction in Uniform Annual Cost (RUAC) that is used as the economical decision criterion to select the most economical maintenance alternative for each roof element at different condition states. The analysis utilizes integer linear programming to optimize the selection of maintenance actions for the different elements by maximizing the RUAC under budgetary constraints. Excel and AMPL software are used to implement the analysis.

This study uses the roofing systems of 28 buildings on the North Carolina State University campus as a model to develop the Decision Support System. Parameters necessary to develop the model are estimated. The analysis is tested on the available data base.