Patent ID: 7143007

Claim:
A system for managing replaceable components for equipment having a plurality of components, each component having a limited useful life, comprising: a computer with at least one processor; a computer program module for defining a duty profile comprising a plurality of usage cases for the equipment, each usage case involving two or more of the plurality of components and specified operating conditions assumed to be experienced by the involved components during the execution of each of the usage cases; a computer program module for determining a theoretical useful life for each component involved in the duty profile, said theoretical useful life being based on component wear parameters assumed to occur under the specified operating conditions; sensors for determining and monitoring the occurrence of equipment operation corresponding to a usage case and making measurements of actual operating conditions experienced in the equipment operation; a memory for storing the measurements of actual operating conditions for the plurality of components; and a computer program module for computing an adjusted theoretical useful life for a component after the component has experienced one or more operations, by: responsive to the measurements of actual operating conditions, calculating one or more wear parameters for each operation and accumulating these calculated parameters for such component; and based on a comparison of the accumulated, calculated one or more wear parameters from actual operating conditions to accumulated wear parameters assumed to occur under the specified operating conditions in the determination of a theoretical useful life, determining the amount of the adjusted theoretical useful life consumed in the one or more operations.