Optimisation of two-dimensional warranty region under preventive maintenance over product lifetime by considering both manufacture and consumer's point of views

Abstract

An appropriate warranty period plays an essential role in consumer satisfaction and manufacturer costs. Manufacturer and consumer are two critical parts of any transaction; therefore, inattention to each of them causes dissatisfaction and financial loss. Therefore, this research proposes a model to determine an optimal two-dimensional warranty period to minimise both manufacturer's warranty servicing cost and consumer's post-warranty cost. Furthermore, to reduce the frequency of product failures, a preventive maintenance program is implemented during the warranty and post-warranty periods, respectively, by the manufacturer and the consumer. Finally, two comparisons are made to show the model effectiveness. The first one shows the superiority of the joint minimisation of the manufacturer's warranty cost and the consumer's post-warranty cost over the single minimisation. The second one shows that a proper preventive maintenance program can effectively reduce the costs of both the manufacturer and the consumer.