Optimal preventive replacement policy for operating products with renewing free-replacement warranty

Abstract

This paper investigates the optimal preventive replacement policy for products with random work under a renewing free-replacement warranty (RFRW). To model an imperfect maintenance action when the product fails, we consider that the failed product undergoes minimal repairs at minor failures and corrective replacements at catastrophic failures. Before catastrophic failures, the product is planned to replace preventively at age T or at the completion of a working time, whichever occurs first. For both warranted and non-warranted products, preventive replacement models from customer’s perspective are developed, and the optimal schedules of age-replacement that minimize the mean cost rate functions are derived. The effects of a product warranty on the optimal preventive replacement model are investigated analytically and computed numerically. It can be seen that the proposed model is a generalization of the previous works in maintenance theory.