Designing a two-dimensional maintenance policy for products sold under a two-dimensional warranty by considering both warranty servicing cost and lost opportunity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the manufacturer-consumer context, a two-dimensional preventive maintenance policy is developed for sold products under a two-dimensional warranty by pursuing two objectives: (1) minimization of the imposed warranty servicing cost on the manufacturer and (2) minimization of lost opportunity cost resulting from the product downtime. In addition, in order to adapt the model to real applications, we depart from the literature by taking into consideration the continuous nature of the usage rate variable. To illustrate the advantages of the model, three types of couple-based comparative models are made. Type I consists of two models with a one-dimensional preventive maintenance policy, while type II includes a model with no maintenance activity. Finally, type III involves two single-objective models. The results obtained from the comparison of the suggested model with the type I and II models confirm the significant effect of employing a two-dimensional preventive maintenance policy in improving both manufacturers’ and customers’ satisfaction. In addition, comparisons of the suggested bi-objective model with three types of models indicate the importance of taking into account both the warranty servicing cost and loss opportunity.