Post-warranty maintenance optimization for products with deterioration depending on aging and shock

ABSTRACT

Due to the non-substitutability of the product, the monopoly manufacturer designs warranty to reduce maximally warranty cost. Although the monopoly manufacturer maintains responsibly product reliability in warranty, the consumer still confronts a problem about how to sustain product reliability after the designed warranty expires. Goal of this paper is, from the consumer’s perspective, to propose a reliability maintenance policy after expiry of the monopoly manufacturer’s warranty. First, a renewable repair-limit pro-rata replacement warranty (RRLPRRW) policy is considered from viewpoint of the monopoly manufacturer and used as a quality guarantee of the product with the deterioration affected by internal aging and external shock. Second, depreciation cost is earlier considered in the process of modeling life cycle cost, which differs from the traditional works on the consumer’s post-warranty reliability maintenance problem. Third, the consumer’s discounted cost rate model considering depreciation cost is derived to achieve optimal maintenance policy. Finally, a numerical example is provided to illustrate our approach. It was found that the proposed maintenance policy is more effective and the depreciation cost considered in life cycle cost has significant effect on extension of the post-warranty period.

KEYWORDS:

• Internal aging
• external shock
• renewable warranty
• repair-limit
• preventive maintenance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71471147], [grant number 71631001]; Basic Research Project of Natural Science in Shaanxi Province [grant number 2018JM7009]; and 111 Project [grant number B13044].

Notes on contributors

Lijun Shang

Lijun Shang is currently a PhD student in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University. He received his MS degree in 2014 from Shijiazhuang Tiedao University. His research includes warranty cost analysis, maintenance decision and importance measure of component.

Zhiqiang Cai

Zhiqiang Cai is a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China (NPU). He is also a member of IEEE and IEEE RS. He received his BS degree and MS degree in 2003 and 2006 at NPU. He received his PhD degree in 2010 at NPU, majored in Management Science and Engineering. His research topics include reliability modeling and maintenance management.

Hudong Chen

Hudong Chen is currently an engineer in the Equipment Maintenance Center of Shenhua Zhunneng Company. His research includes warranty cost analysis, maintenance decision and optimization.

Shuai Zhang

Shuai Zhang is currently a lecturer in the School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China (NPU). She received her BS degree in 2004 and received her MS degree in 2008 at NPU, majored in Mechatronics Engineering. Her research topics include phased-mission systems, binary decision diagram, multi-state multi-valued decision diagram and reliability evaluation.