On optimal replacement-repair policy for multi-state deteriorating products under renewing free replacement warranty

  • Authors:
  • Hashem Vahdani;Stefanka Chukova;Hashem Mahlooji

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Industrial Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Iran;School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn Campus, Wellington, New Zealand;Department of Industrial Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Ave., Tehran, Iran

  • Venue:
  • Computers & Mathematics with Applications
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

In this paper a replacement-repair model is developed to study a renewing free replacement warranty (RFRW) for a class of multi-state deteriorating repairable products. After a replacement, the product warranty is renewed. Two parameters affect the manufacturer's decision to minimally repair or replace a failed item: the product deterioration level at the time of failure and the remaining warranty time. We derive an optimal replacement-repair policy to minimise the expected warranty servicing cost per item sold. In the case of a product with two different working states, we are able to explicitly find the optimal values of the replacement-repair parameters using the Adomian decomposition method. In general, for N2, it is impossible to find the optimal parameter values analytically. Hence, a computational procedure for finding these optimal values is proposed. For more clarification, numerical examples are also presented.