OPTIMAL PREVENTIVE-MAINTENANCE WARRANTY POLICIES FOR REPAIRABLE PRODUCTS WITH AGE-DEPENDENT MAINTENANCE COSTS

Abstract

This paper develops a mathematical model to derive the optimal preventive maintenance warranty (PMW) policy for repairable products with age-dependent maintenance costs. Under a PMW, any product failures are rectified by minimal repair, and additional preventive maintenance actions are carried out within the warranty period. When the costs for preventive maintenance and minimal repair are age-dependent, the optimal number of preventive maintenance actions, corresponding maintenance degrees, and the maintenance schedule for designing a PMW policy are derived here such that the expected total warranty cost is minimized. Under some reasonable conditions, we show that there exists a unique optimal PMW policy in which the product is maintained periodically with the same preventive maintenance degree. Using this property, an efficient algorithm is provided to search for the optimal policy. Some related models developed in the literature are discussed and these models are in fact special cases of the model proposed in this paper. Furthermore, when the life-time distribution of a product is Weibull, a closed-form expression of the optimal policy is obtained. Finally, the impact of providing preventive maintenance is evaluated through numerical examples.