AbstractThis paper presents a fuzzy‐based method for determining a flexible generator maintenance scheduling by means of subjective relaxation of constraints imposed on the maintenance scheduling problem. The constraints are divided into hard (crisp) constraint set and soft (fuzzy) constraint set according to reflecting conditions which surround power systems. The problem is formulated as a fuzzy mathematical programming problem and solved with the fuzzy branch‐and‐bound method using Bellman‐Zadeh maximizing decision. The proposed approach provides not only a new flexible concept of planning problems in power systems, but also natural expansion of conventional approaches based on crisp set theory. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed approach are demonstrated on two typical power system models which consist of 15 generators and 60 generators, respe