Optimal system design based on burn in, warranty and maintenance

Abstract

Product design of systems includes issues like conceptual design, product development and testing. Once the system is launched into the market, issues like warranty, maintenance and product lifecycle are of interest. Thus design and manufacturing decisions must be made on the basis of product characteristics such as its functionality, reliability and maintainability. The objective of the present work is to construct a new stochastic model which treats burn-in, warranty and maintenance strategies together in order to define coordinated strategies for system design and management. A system is maintained preventively with general repair and minimally repaired on failure. Using system lifecycle cost which includes installation and running cost, burn-in cost, warranty cost and post warranty cost, various optimality issues are addressed.