WARRANTY PERIOD CALCULATION AFTER THE REPAIR OF A COMPLEX INDUSTRIAL ASSET APPLYING NON-HOMOGENEOUS POISSON PROCESSES

Abstract

This paper seeks to address the decision process involved in setting a warranty length for a product after successive repairs are performed. For that purpose, the paper starts describing briefly the warranty perspective and introducing the relevant literature related to Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA). Then, the main aspects of LCCA are defined in order to be applied for the calculation of the warranty period in a product which has been sold and requires a technical assistance for its repair. This work includes as a novelty the calculation of such period of time in relationship with the risk that the company is willing to assume. The result is a procedure that may be crucial for a maintenance company, not only to make better forecasts of future warranty costs but also as an important marketing tool. With this goal, this paper describes a mathematical development which will be illustrated with a case study divided in two exercises, where the above mentioned concepts are applied to calculate the proper warranty period for a specific repaired product. Finally, the conclusions are presented summarizing the main contributions of the paper.