The optimal preventive-maintenance policy for a NHPBP repairable system under free-repair warranty. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chien, Yu-Hung
• Is Part Of: Reliability engineering & system safety. Volume 188(2019)
• Page Start: 444
• Page End: 453
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Non-Homogeneous Pure Birth Process -- Generalized Yule birth process -- Free-repair warranty -- Preventive maintenance -- Expected warranty cost -- Optimal PM scheme; Reliability (Engineering) -- Periodicals; System safety -- Periodicals; Industrial safety -- Periodicals; Fiabilité -- Périodiques; Sécurité des systèmes -- Périodiques; Sécurité du travail -- Périodiques; 620.00452
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2019.03.053
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0951-8320

Abstract

Highlights: System with nonhomogeneous pure birth process under warranty with maintenance. A new way to model the effect of repair on failure rate, worse than minimal repair. Deriving the optimal preventive maintenance scheme under the free-repair warranty. Offer an important analytical tool for marketing managers to design warranty. Abstract: This investigation focuses on deriving an optimal preventive maintenance (PM) scheme for a system under the free-repair warranty (FRW). We utilize a Non-Homogeneous Pure Birth Process (NHPBP) to model the process of more general failures and repairs during the coverage period of FRW, propose a type of PM model for such a NHPBP repairable system, and develop the expected cost function. Under the special case of failure intensity, we first prove that there exists a unique optimal PM schedule for FRW with a finite number of PMs and then compute the optimal number of PMs and their implementation times for a given FRW coverage period. Numerical computation and sensitivity analysis are conducted to gain more insights about the NHPBP repairable system under FRW with and without PMs. Our results offer an important analytical tool for marketing managers to design more competitive and cost minimal warranty policies for durable and complex systems with a more general failure process and 'worse-than-minimal repair'.