No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
A framework for warranty management in industrial assets
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to suggest a management framework for a better organization of warranty assistance, using engineering techniques already developed for similar processes and according to a process-based quality management system. Therefore, a generic framework is presented that integrates management methodologies which will be gathered in four sequential steps, where each different technique will play a crucial role.Following this scheme, a supporting framework for the management of a warranty program is defined. This offers a practical vision of the set of activities that each warranty management process consists of and focuses on the relationship between manufacturer and user. By reengineering managerial processes and/or by the application of a correct warranty management system it is possible to have a greater influence on product design and manufacturing, increasing product quality by sharing and boosting the information flow about product defects, their sources and possible solutions.The result of the study is, in short, a classification of different engineering tools, focused mainly on warranty and product management. In addition to this it also demonstrates how aspects of maintenance and manufacturing can be enhanced before finally discussing briefly the proper use of each tool according to the available data or information. All this is illustrated through a comprehensive representation that will help the reader to understand in a practical way, the different information inputs/outputs among the proposed steps.
... Consequently, there are opportunities of significant cost savings as well as the possibility of increasing the business' value through higher levels of customer satisfaction, not through better quality assets, but for better quality functions. Under this situation, it is mandatory for companies with focus on service, to take into consideration the interactions between engineering, marketing and customer support from an operational and strategic level [15]. Therefore, customer relationship management should be handled as an aspect that can create more value in the performance of the business. ...
... Framework to enhance servitization processes [16] This framework covers from data analysis, to advance simulation and optimization mechanisms that facilitate the final decision-making process of product-service systems. Together with the decision on what is the most appropriate level of servitization (and with which specific level) in terms of cost and business strategy, it is important to stablish the contractual frame that links the asset supplier with the asset user [15]. Service contracts must encompass the conditions for such services. ...
... The techniques used in these relations generally considered as a part of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, or as a complementary part of them. The CRM (Customer Relation Management) is not exclusively used to define a business strategy centered on the customer, but also to include a group of information technology applications useful to sort and manage data related with customer, reclamations, and in general with the commercial activity of the company [15]. As it has been mentioned before, the CRM is often used as a module for customer management including ERP software. ...
Abstract. One of the main interest for today’s companies is to reduce the life cycle
cost of those assets included in their productive processes. With that purpose, new
business models are considering the acquisition of services provided by an asset,
instead of the direct ownership of such asset. In other words, the focus is that the
asset’s ownership remains in the service supplier, since the company just purchases
the results obtained using the asset during a specific period. This asset utilization is
at the end of the day the value added by the asset to the productive process. With
that idea, this contribution is intended to summarize an overview of factors in order
to decide between “lease or buy” an industrial asset. The choice between buying or
leasing an asset must take into account different aspects, all of them with advantages
and disadvantages, that must provide finally a positive influence in the profit and
loss statement. Together with this discussion, one of the factor to take into account
is nowadays the new digital tools that come from the so-called Fourth Industrial
Revolution (4ID). These new tools (i.e. the IoT) support the asset management in a
servitization context, contributing with big data analytics to facilitate the decision
making in terms of criticality and reliability assessments as well as other decisions
involved in the industrial asset management. In fact, the Digital Transformation may
simplify the connection among system, process, asset and service, dealing with massive
information interconnected among different assets, as well as different organizations
like the asset user and the service supplier.
... Warranty length is defined by the car producer and its goal is to be responsive and cost efficient (Kurata and Nam, 2010). Warranty efficiency must be done based on the minimum waste expense or unnecessary effort and for that companies must establish a standard and repeatable method to execute the repairs and to collect and analyze data and interpreting results (González-Prida and Crespo Márquez, 2012). ...
... Figure 1 represents these roles (constructs) and their elements as well the relationship with quality management. To increase revenue and customer's satisfaction with product support, doing more with minimal wastes and efforts is necessary (Kurata and Nam, 2010;González-Prida and Crespo Márquez, 2012) as well providing repair services. Spare parts must be available but not obsolete (Edvardsson et al., 2010;Izogo and Ogba, 2015). ...
Purpose
Branded car dealerships with best revenue by serviced car also have the best after-sales customers´ satisfaction level. This paper presents the analysis of the after-sales quality management practices adopted by dealerships with the best performance in terms of customer’s satisfaction and revenue and how such practices contribute to these results.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study was performed with nine leader branded car dealerships in an emerging country, considering the entrance car. The performance indicators to evaluate customers´ satisfaction, revenue, and operational indicators related to product support, brand manifestation and relationship with customers were identified. Quality management practices that support the best results achievement were analyzed.
Findings
The three dealerships that represent Asiatic brands have best customers´ satisfaction and revenue performance. These dealerships typically have different processes comparing with dealerships that represent European and American brands concerning to: (i) continuous improvement management; (ii) warranties and stock management; (iii) services scheduling; (iv) offer bonuses to customers; and (v) customers service that emphasizes focus on technical and commercial expertise.
Originality/value
This research considered indicators performance and, based on that, analyzed the dealerships´ practices that support the best performance. Such aspect has room for academic literature since the quality management research related to car industry focuses mainly on manufacturer and generate managerial insights to the car industry and its dealerships.
... De este modo, la prioridad es determinar una secuencia de acciones eficientes, las cuales aseguren mínimas pérdidas de funcionamiento y que maximicen la utilidad del producto por parte del usuario [6]. Sobre los antecedentes y descripción de un marco de re-ferencia propuesto para la gestión postventa de activos industriales, se sugiere consultar la referencia [7]. ...
... El teorema de Bayes incorpora este tipo de soporte predictivo al diagnóstico[19]. En el diagrama de flujo que se presenta en la Figura 1, basado en los trabajos de[7],[13], se muestra la ubicación de las distintas metodologías de Análisis de Causa Raíz en un modelo de gestión del mantenimiento por etapas.Aquí se puede observar lo siguiente: -El Análisis de Pareto se ubica en la etapa de jerarquización de equipos críticos, debido a que junto a la matriz de criticidad, puede ayudar a determinar qué equipos son críticos a nivel sistémico.-El FMEA puede ser utilizado en la etapa de Análisis de Puntos débiles de los equipos críticos, donde una evaluación de causas, modos de fallo y efectos puede considerarse relevante.-El ...
Este documento se centra en una de las etapas propuestas por los autores como marco de referencia para mejorar la gestión del servicio post-venta. Concretamente, la etapa referida trata de aplicar el análisis causa-raiz de fallos para la mejora de la organización de las asistencias en garantía. Dicho análisis permitetomar mejores decisiones dentro del ámbito del servicio post-venta como, por ejemplo, saber si una determinada incidencia debe ser tratada en garantía o no. A tal efecto, el artículo comienza con una introducción a la noción actual de garantía, describiendo brevemente la propuesta de marco de referencia y la literatura relevante relacionada con este servicio al cliente. A continuación, los principales aspectos del Análisis Causa-Raiz se definen con el fin de aplicar estos conceptos en la gestión de aquellas incidencias comunicadas por el propio usuario. Con este objetivo, el presente trabajo pretende adaptar una herramienta desarrollada y aplicada en la gestión del mantenimiento(el Análisis Causa-Raíz), a un nuevo campo como es el del servicio de atención al cliente. Al final del documento se presentan las conclusiones donde se resumen las principales aportaciones de este trabajo.
... Instead, the decision-maker relies on observations to update belief states, which serve as probabilistic representations of the system's underlying condition. Mahmoodi et al. explore SMDP-based maintenance for parallel unit systems in dynamic environments [60] , while Arcieri et al. propose a framework for inferring POMDP parameters using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to and address model uncertainty through domain randomization in RL training [61] . ...
Reliability engineering and management are becoming more important as systems evolve in functionality and complexity. Given various dynamic factors influencing reliability, static one-time decision frameworks can no longer offer optimal reliability decisions. In the paper, we discuss the recent trends in reliability decision-making methods across three stages of reliability issues: reliability testing and optimization, reliability modeling and evaluation, and post-service design. We can find a growing interest in time-dependent dynamic methods in research for all these three stages. Sequential decision modeling methods, such as the Markov decision process and its extensions, can be a resort to solve these problems, while modeling and problem-solving can be quite challenging under certain circumstances. Future research holds promising opportunities in related topics.
... The misbalance was caused by relatively higher investments in the product design and the fact that certified companies heightened their customers' needs. The findings suggested that ISO 9001:2015 certified companies adopted innovative measures to differentiate themselves from non-certified companies in terms of product design, which is in line with previous studies related to the impact of QMS in product design (Fernandes et al., 2015;González-Prida & Crespo, 2012). Furthermore, our findings provide evidence of the importance of this dimension during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
The motivation of this study is to provide empirical evidence of service companies’ performance regarding nine dimensions in a total quality management model during the COVID-19 pandemic. The nine dimensions highlight strategic company activities, and it allows a comparative analysis of the overall effect of having a QMS such as ISO 9001:2015 on Peruvian service companies. A total of 630 Peruvian service companies were surveyed for this study. The questionnaire included 35 Likert-scale items that were further classified into nine (9) dimensions. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to estimate any significant differences between the ISO 9001 certified and non-certified companies. Our findings showed that the performance of ISO 9001:2015 certified companies was significantly higher than that of non-certified companies in all dimensions. Moreover, our findings showed that managers in ISO 9001:2015 certified companies effectively implemented the nine dimensions of the model. The originality of this study lies in proving the positive effect of having a QMS in service companies in a context of slow economic growth and decline of consumer demand such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings might encourage service companies, especially those in developing countries, to allocate the necessary resources to obtain a QMS such as the ISO 9001:2015.
... [2] adapts a method, or a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method, to prioritise warranty-related activities that may affect customers satisfaction. [3] proposes a warranty management framework that outlines the main issues in achieving the goal of a warranty programme and meet customers satisfaction. [4] identifies the top contributors to warranty incidents and costs and then proposes a warranty hazard taxonomy. ...
Warranty is a useful tool for a manufacturer to reflect its product quality and combat competition. It, however, introduces various risks that may have a direct impact on the profitability and reputation of the manufacturer. Although managing such risks is crucial in reducing the number of warranty incidents and warranty related cost, little research has systematically investigated warranty risk management (WaRM). As such, this paper aims to (1) analyse the existing literature on warranty-related risks; (2) develop a generic WaRM framework; (3) investigate the existing WaRM techniques and methods by surveying the warranty decision makers in the automotive industry in the UK, and then (4) propose a warranty hazard identification tool through utilising social media data.
... Costantino et al. (2012) analysed customers' perceptions regarding products, warranty service and related risks. González-Prida and Márquez (2012) proposed a warranty management framework outlining the main aspects that should be considered to achieve the warranty plan and obtain customers' satisfaction accurately. ...
Purpose - This paper aims to (1) analyse the existing work of warranty risk management (WaRM); (2) develop a generic WaRM framework; and (3) design a generic taxonomy for warranty hazards from a warranty chain perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – To understand the top warranty hazards, we designed a questionnaire, received 40 responses from the warranty decision makers (WDM) in the automotive industry in the UK and then analysed the responses.
Findings – The assembly process capability at suppliers is the top contributor to warranty incidents from the suppliers’ and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs’) viewpoints. The human error at different stages of the product lifecycle contributes to the occurrence of warranty incidents. The collaboration among parties, particularly, the accessibility to warranty-related data between parties (i.e., suppliers, OEM and dealers), is limited. Customers’ fraud contributes more to warranty costs than warranty services providers’ (WSPs) fraud. The top contributors to customer dissatisfaction relating to warranty are the warranty service time and service quality.
Research limitations/implications – The questionnaires were used to collect data in the UK, which implies the research outcomes of this paper may only reflect the UK area.
Practical implications – The WaRM framework and taxonomy proposed in this paper provide warranty decision makers with a holistic view to identifying the top contributors to warranty incidents. With them, the decision makers will be able to allocate the required fund and efforts more effectively.
Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature by providing the first work of systematically analysing the top contributors to warranty incidents and costs and by providing a WaRM framework.
... Although the literature of warranty management is vast, it focuses on making financial plans such as estimating the number of the future warranty claims or costs, optimising maintenance policies, among others. In contrast, warranty risk management (WaRM) has received little attention and only been mentioned as an off topic by Díaz & Márquez (2011), González-Prida & Márquez (2012) and Costantino et al. (2012). ...
This research was designed to examine the relationship between Maintenance Management and organizational performance among selected manufacturing firms in Akwa Ibom State. Survey research design was adopted for the study and a sample size of 258 respondents was drawn from the population of 275. For the objective of the study to be achieved, five hypotheses were formulated. The major instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire administered to the respondent using random sampling techniques. Data collected were analysed using simple percentage and Ordinal Logistic Regression. Results show that there is a significant correlation between variables of maintenance management such as corrective, preventive, condition-based maintenance and pre-determined maintenance and organizational performance variables of effectiveness, efficiency and profitability among selected manufacturing firms in Akwa Ibom State. Based on the finding of the analysis, management has to provide the maintenance teams with a maintenance management software in order to ensure proper interventions monitoring as well as smooth communication between technicians and other professionals to enhances business success. Consequently, it is recommended that Management should ensure that Corrective maintenance is implemented right after a defect has been detected on a piece of equipment or a production line: its objective is to make the piece of equipment work normally again, so that it can perform its assigned function. Corrective maintenance can either be planned or unplanned depending on whether or not a maintenance plan has been created.
One of the main interests for today’s companies is to reduce the life cycle cost of those assets included in their productive processes. With that purpose, new business models are considering the acquisition of services provided by an asset, instead of the direct ownership of such asset. In other words, the focus is that the asset’s ownership remains in the service supplier, since the company just purchases the results obtained using the asset during a specific period. This asset utilization is at the end of the day the value added by the asset to the productive process. With that idea, this contribution is intended to summarize an overview of factors in order to decide between “lease or buy” an industrial asset. The choice between buying or leasing an asset must take into account different aspects, all of them with advantages and disadvantages, that must provide finally a positive influence in the profit and loss statement. Together with this discussion, one of the factor to take into account is nowadays the new digital tools that come from the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (4ID). These new tools (i.e. the IoT) support the asset management in a servitization context, contributing with big data analytics to facilitate the decision making in terms of criticality and reliability assessments as well as other decisions involved in the industrial asset management. In fact, the Digital Transformation may simplify the connection among system, process, asset and service, dealing with massive information interconnected among different assets, as well as different organizations like the asset user and the service supplier.
Fault identification during warranty is quite complex because of sophisticated product design and distributed manufacturing. Various supply chain facilities located at diverse geographical locations are usually utilised to manufacture a particular product. If a fault occurs in one component of a product, it may be linked with other components which are procured and manufactured by other segments of the globally distributed supply chain. Hence, in this multifaceted scenario, the information systems have to be integrated and responsive enough to respond proactively in sharing data from heterogeneous systems across the supply chain in the cyber ecosystem. To achieve this goal, in this chapter, we integrate warranty data from multiple datasets. Initially, social media dataset is used. Consumers increasingly engage in information sharing on weblogs, forums, Facebook, and Twitter, among others. This valuable information is mostly untapped by the automotive manufacturers. To explore the large amount of hidden fault-related data, we used data analytics. Then, we develop a cloud-based collaborative framework to manage the warranty data from other supply chain information systems, namely, design, manufacture and service. The framework provides integration and access of warranty data from multiple datasets of supply chain. The proposed ‘autonomous smart agents’ interaction assists to establish real-time warranty data exchange across the supply chain. The combined data can then be used for detailed expert analysis by fault learning and rectification agent. The execution of the framework is demonstrated using an illustrative execution process. Our contributions are clearly detailed, and some important managerial insights are provided for warranty management in globally distributed supply chain.
https://www.elsevier.com/books/strategy-leadership-and-ai-in-the-cyber-ecosystem/jahankhani/978-0-12-821442-8
This paper seeks to address the decision process involved in setting a warranty length for a product after successive repairs are performed. The underlying stochastic failure models used are called: General Renewal Process and Non-homogeneous Poisson Process both determined by a Weibull distribution, distinguishing renewal or not of the lifetime distribution by successive repairs respectively. This article makes a comparison between two different stochastic methods, one of them applied to simple cases when repairs are simple (NHPP) and the other used when repairs are complex (GRP).For that purpose, the paper starts describing briefly a reference framework proposal for the warranty management and introducing the relevant literature related to 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 important aspects of both stochastic models. The mathematical development is 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.
Servitisation is recognized as a key business strategy for Original Equipment Manufacturers willing to move up the value chain. However, several barriers have to be overcome in order to successfully integrate products and services. Many of these barriers are caused by the technical challenges associated with the design and management of the product-service systems, such as life cycle service level and cost estimation,
risk management, or the system design and pricing. Asset management presents itself as a key research area in order to overcome these barriers as well as to integrate product-service systems within the manufacturers’ operations management. It is the scope of
this paper to provide theoretical and practical insights with regards to the alignment of asset management and product-service system research areas. To support the alignment between both areas, a management framework which gathers specific technologies, including reliability analysis, simulation modelling and multi-objective optimisation algorithms, is presented. The purpose of the framework is to provide manufacturers with a decision-support tool that facilitates the main managerial challenges faced when
implementing a servitisation strategy. The paper contributions are successfully applied to case studies in the railway and wind energy sectors based on real field data, thereby
demonstrating their suitability for both facilitating manufacturer’s decision making
process and better satisfying stakeholders’ interests.
After-sales maintenance services can be a very profitable source of income for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) due to the increasing interest of assets’ users on performance-based contracts. However, when it concerns the product value-adding process, OEMs have traditionally been more focused on improving their production processes, rather than on complementing their products by offering after-sales services, consequently leading to difficulties in offering them efficiently. Furthermore, due to both the high uncertainty of the assets’ behaviour and the inherent challenges of managing the maintenance process (e.g. maintenance strategy to be followed or resources to be deployed), it is complex to make business out of the supply of after-sales services. Aiming at helping the business and maintenance decision-makers at this point, this paper proposes a framework for optimising the income of after-sales maintenance services through: (a) implementing advanced multi-objective opportunistic maintenance strategies that systematically consider the assets’ operational context in order to perform preventive maintenance during the most favourable conditions, (b) considering the specific OEMs’ and users’ needs and (c) assessing both endogenous and exogenous uncertainties that might condition the after-sales services’ profitability. The developed case study for the wind energy sector demonstrates the suitability of the presented framework for optimising the after-sales services.
Purpose Actual situations evidence how adopted decisions can change the decision constraints of the system where the AHP is being applied. Therefore, this research is intended to provide a dynamic view of the AHP method, considering the criteria and alternatives as temporary variables and finally obtaining not only one good choice for a specific moment but a more comprehensive picture of those alternatives resulting more important for the business, according to strategy and over time. Design/methodology/approach With this purpose this paper starts with a short literature review and the general characteristics of the AHP method. Afterwards, this paper presents the problem that appears frequently in actual situations which justify the development of this research. Once described, the uncertainty appeared after the AHP implementation, the proposed methodology called dynamic analytic hierarchy process (DAHP) is presented. Findings Finally, this paper shows a case study and concludes with the main points of the research suggesting applications and further extensions. Originality/value The value of this paper is the description of a DAHP as a tool that can facilitate decision-making related to some of the critical aspects in maintenance or post-sales area, permitting the alignment of actions with the business’ objectives.
The piled-raft foundation is one of the major advances in foundation engineering in the last decades.
It use has been increased in the last years up to become a common solution to solve large structure foundations.
This
foundation
system
has
been
widely accepted
by
its efficiency
on
settlement reduction
and
favorable
economic effect compared to conventional solutions.
The
aim of this article
is
to show the behavior
of
the combined piled-raft foundation
taking into account the interaction between
its three main elements:
raft,
soil and pile. The assessment of variation on
the length, diameter
and spacing of
the piles on
admissible
load
capacity is
presented.
Furthermore
their influence
on
settlement reduction
under
axial
load
is
referred
to. Finally
a
study of load transfer from superstructure to the soil is performed through a computational
numerical
experiment
developed by
using PLAXIS
3D Foundation
based
on finite element
method.
This chapter deals with those prefabricated systems with a steady state of operation (state in which the temporal variation of the thermodynamic properties is null), describing, in a brief manner, a methodology for testing the characterization of the thermal performance in accordance with the European normative. All of the previously mentioned form the justification for a foundation or base from which a testing installation is proposed in a later chapter that, at the same time, is compared to a real installation. Lastly, this chapter attempts to outline a simple mathematical methodology to analyze the future behavior of the reliability of a system (solar in this case), when it is still in an extremely early stage of its life cycle, such as the design phase.
Nowadays, organizational performance is no longer evaluated by considering economic aspects alone. The use of social and environmental-related indicators has experienced an increasing growth. The balancing of these three dimensions (the Triple Bottom Line-TBL) in day-today organizational activities to obtain higher levels of performance is a complex issue, involving the coordination of different areas with their demand for resources and competing objectives. Industrial maintenance plays a determinant role on TBL dimensions. The improvement of maintenance performance has recently been the target of semantic models, decision-making and interoperability studies. There is, however, a need to more substantially discuss the impacts of industrial maintenance on organizational sustainability and vice-versa. This work aims at filling this gap by characterizing industrial maintenance in a sustainability context through a systematic literature review of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, with a focus on supporting topics such as interoperability, ontology and decision-making.
This section presents a case study to illustrate a range of typical circumstances in the management of warranty claims, such as spare parts management, inter-departmental decision-making processes, and cost-related issues.
The first part of this chapter is an introduction to the book and describes the context and the purpose of the work. An introductory material to the process followed for the elaboration of the book is also provided. The second part presents the fundamental issues and current research topics in warranty management and after-sales services. A literature review illustrates current state-of-the-art including main international research contributions and best practices. Case studies are presented to illustrate these issues accordingly. This second part is structured in the following chapters.
Throughout this research, we have observed how a proper management framework for after-sales service can help and define new and clearer policies and procedures in the warranty claiming process, technical assistance to the user, spare parts stock, etc., reducing costs, improving the quality of the product, and increasing customer satisfaction.
This chapter deals with those prefabricated systems with a steady state of operation (state in which the temporal variation of the thermodynamic properties is null), describing, in a brief manner, a methodology for testing the characterization of the thermal performance in accordance with the European normative. All of the previously mentioned form the justification for a foundation or base from which a testing installation is proposed in a later chapter that, at the same time, is compared to a real installation. Lastly, this chapter attempts to outline a simple mathematical methodology to analyze the future behavior of the reliability of a system (solar in this case), when it is still in an extremely early stage of its life cycle, such as the design phase.
This book explores the practical implementation of an advanced after-sales management framework devoted to warranty management. The framework is intended for companies producing either standardized or customized products and such a management tool will facilitate organizational improvement and support innovative decision making processes for technical assistance in after-sales services. "After-sales Service of Engineering Industrial Assets" comprises a proposal for a warranty management framework, with an account of the different methods that can be used to improve decision making in the different stages of the after-sales service management process, and strategies for strengthening the structure and foundations of the framework. A review of the fundamental issues and current research topics in warranty management and after sales services is also provided, which is exemplified by a case study. This book is intended for postgraduates, researchers and engineers who are interested in after sales management, assets engineering and warranty management. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014. All rights reserved.
This article presents a conceptual framework entitled Project Aware Shutdown Maintenance (PASM) as a support tool for the diagnosis and establishment of managerial and operational improvements in the structuration of Maintenance Shutdowns. In order to achieve such objective, semi-structured researches were conducted and analyzed under the conceptual support of content analysis and the Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software - CAQDAS. As a complementary stage, the Shutdown Maintenance history in a business unit of a food MLE (Medium and Large Enterprise) located in Southern Brazil was studied and analyzed. So as to attest the data obtained, the maintenance managers of the enterprise were interviewed. And these elements together, under a specific methodological approach based on the project management concepts conceived by the PMI, led to the creation of the PASM.
Warranty assistance is characterized by a complex field that involves different disciplines: Management, Organization, Human Resources, Business Economics, Safety, and Environmental Management and, of course, a good knowledge of the product helpful for the customer.
Purpose
– Actual situations evidence how adopted decisions can change the decision constraints of the system where the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is being applied. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide a dynamic view of the AHP method, considering the criteria and alternatives as temporary variables and finally obtaining not only one good choice for a specific moment but a more comprehensive picture of those alternatives resulting more important for the business, according to strategy and over time.
Design/methodology/approach
– With this purpose this paper starts with a short literature review and the general characteristics of the AHP method. Afterwards, the paper presents the problem that appears frequently in actual situations which justify the development of this research. Once described, the uncertainty appeared after the AHP implementation, the proposed methodology called dynamic analytic hierarchy process (DAHP) is presented.
Findings
– Finally, this paper shows a case study and concludes with the main points of the research suggesting applications and further extensions.
Originality/value
– The value of this paper is the description of a DAHP as a tool that can facilitate decision making related to some of the critical aspects in maintenance or post-sales area, permitting the alignment of actions with the business’ objectives.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of maintenance in improving company’s
competitiveness and profitability. In the first part the paper aims to discuss the potential improvement
areas from the company perspective. Second part of this paper examines maintenance impact on
company’s business.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical case study was utilized aiming to provide an
understanding of the role of maintenance in improving company’s business. The empirical data
for this study were collected from a Slovenian textile company. A gap analysis was used in order to
address the research problem and to identify potential improvement areas.
Findings – Based on the gap analysis, the results suggest that from respondents’ points of view,
maintenance practices related to condition-based maintenance approach represent the highest
opportunity for improvement. The most notable empirical results of the case study showed that
around 3 per cent of additional profit could be generated at weaving machine, especially if all
unplanned stoppages and loss of quality due to decrease in the productivity would be prevented.
Practical implications – This paper demonstrates to managers the potential benefits of maintenance
policy in terms of productivity, quality and profitability. In this regard, this paper builds on a premise
that company can gain higher performance benefits using more effective maintenance policy.
Originality/value – The proposed conceptual model contributes to the existing literature by
showing the interactions between maintenance and company’s competitiveness and profitability.
Empirical findings of this study therefore, acknowledge maintenance’s potential of increasing the
overall profit. In addition this study advances prior studies by utilizing a gap analysis which is rare
in this type of research.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a brief summary of quality and contractual aspects for the improvement of the warranty management. Together with this, the present work will show also some of the best practices followed by companies in order to manage properly those kinds of issues related to warranty, as well as some indications to assess the implementation degree of such practices in the whole organization. Basically, the global objective of the study is to present to the reader and in few words the importance of taking into account legal and quality aspects, when a company offers a technical service for the warranty assistance of any of its products, together with the maturity level that this company achieves applying some best practices currently available.
Design/methodology/approach
The study starts by mentioning some antecedents related to warranty, in order to summarize a reference framework, proposed for proper warranty management, and how the information exchange should be performed among the different departments of a generic company. Then, it will be suggested how to apply this according to a strategic management which is divided in phases, taken from the product life cycle concept: Front‐end, Design and Development, Production, Marketing, and Post‐sale Support. These phases are included in three higher stages considered as Pre‐Launch stage, Launch and Post‐Launch stage, where different decisions play important roles. Afterwards, it will be shown how warranty management is viewed from the contract and legal point of view, in order to link the above mentioned topics on generic management, with those best practices currently presented in actual markets. Finally, once analysed, all those aspects related to best practices and its application on the reference framework, it is required now to quantify how a company manages the warranty assistances by a maturity assessment on warranty management.
Findings
The paper observes what today's companies are doing in this field, that is, their best practices in warranty management covering the quality and contractual aspects already mentioned, in order to round off the development of a completed framework for such management.
Originality/value
The paper presents a review, a framework and a practical application of the framework for the management of warranty contracts, including a maturity assessment or evaluation.
This paper gives an introduction about e-Manufacturing strategies, its fundamental elements and requirements to meet the changing needs of the manufacturing industry in transition to an e-business environment. Briefly speaking, e-Manufacturing is a transformation system that enables the manufacturing operations to achieve predictive near-zero-downtime performance as well as to synchronize with the business systems through the use of web-enabled and tether-free (i.e. wireless, web, etc.) infotronics technologies. It integrates information and decisions in data flow (of machine/process level), information level (of factory and supply system level), and cash flow (of business system level). This transition is dependent upon the advancement of next-generation manufacturing practices on “e-factory and e-automation ” which is focused on the use of information to make things happen collaboratively on a global basis.
This paper was presented as a keynote paper for the “e-Manufacturing” panel discussion at the 31st North American Manufacturing Research Conference to be held at the McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on May 20-23.
Purpose
This paper will be focused in one of the stages included in a reference framework proposed for the improvement of the warranty management. Particularly, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a multi‐criteria decision‐making method that will be depicted throughout this document and applied to a particular case study.
Design/methodology/approach
Once the warranty program objectives and strategy are defined, the referred stage here considered will be the Criticality Analysis. Those decisions and actions taken from the warranty program will involve the possibility of a certain deviation from business objectives in terms of profit losses, redirection of resources, possible delays etc., or the use of assembly pieces as spares, among others.
Findings
The application is required of a technique which helps systematically to decide which assets should have priority related to the management of the warranty program, in accordance of course with the existing program strategy.
Practical implications
The paper will show how this method can help and improve the decision‐making related to some aspect of the warranty management, obtaining as a result a criticality matrix, which offers a prioritized view of warranty issues, which allow us to align after sales actions with the business targets.
Originality/value
This paper aims to explore different aspects related to the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which can influence in the management of warranty assistances. In the process of warranty management for a specific product, many decisions and actions appear presenting a great impact on the total cost of the product warranty service. The paper contains an example study where AHP concepts are applied in a simple way in order to provide a practical application view of the theoretical development, useful to after sales managers as a decision‐making tool.
Purpose
To provide a brief introduction to warranty analysis and a classification of general repairs. To introduce the notion of accelerated probability distribution and use it to model imperfect warranty repairs.
Design/methodology/approach
The notion of accelerated probability distribution is discussed and its similarity with quasi‐renewal and geometric processes is observed. An approach to modeling imperfect warranty repairs based on the accelerated probability distributions is presented, and the corresponding expected warranty cost over the warranty period under non‐renewing free replacement warranty policy is evaluated.
Findings
It is observed that quasi‐renewal and the geometric processes are equivalent. Using data from an existing warranty database it is shown that the inter‐repair times form a quasi‐renewal process. The corresponding expected warranty cost over the warranty period under a non‐renewing free replacement warranty policy is evaluated.
Research limitations/implications
This approach is applicable only if the cost of the warranty repair is an increasing function of the number of repairs.
Practical implications
Provides a useful approach to modeling inter‐repair times incorporating the idea of imperfect repairs in practice.
Originality/value
Provides an approach to model imperfect warranty repairs and to evaluate the corresponding expected warranty cost.
Management literature is almost unanimous in suggesting to manufacturers that they should integrate services into their core product offering. The literature, however, is surprisingly sparse in describing to what extent services should be integrated, how this integration should be carried out, or in detailing the challenges inherent in the transition to services. Reports on a study of 11 capital equipment manufacturers developing service offerings for their products. Focuses on identifying the dimensions considered when creating a service organization in the context of a manufacturing firm, and successful strategies to navigate the transition. Analysis of qualitative data suggests that the transition involves a deliberate developmental process to build capabilities as firms shift the nature of the relationship with the product end-users and the focus of the service offering. The report concludes identifying implications of our findings for further research and practitioners.
This article deals with life analysis and warranty cost estimation of temperature switch-cum-sensor (TSS). It involves analysis of one-dimensional, renewing, and free-replacement warranty policy. Life distribution of TSS is identified from warranty failure data. Then, warranty cost is estimated for an extended time period using the bootstrap method.
The estimated completion cost of a defense acquisition contract is termed the "Estimate At Completion" (EAC). The cancellation of the Navy's A-12 program has increased interest in EAC methods. This paper reviews selected EAC studies. Generalizations based on these studies are also reported. Managers and analysts will find the generalizations useful in determining an accurate EAC.
Software reliability is one of the most important characteristics of software quality. Its measurement and management technologies employed during the software life-cycle are essential for producing and maintaining quality/reliable software systems. Herein, we discuss a modified approach to calculating the delivery cost of a software product, when warranty is to be provided, with an imperfect debugging phenomenon. Unlike existing cost models, here the strategy was to consider maintenance support given to the customer with an imperfect debugging phenomenon. The optimal release time can be calculated for various reliability levels by minimizing the cost. The delivery cost, reliability of the software system, and the optimal release time were calculated by using an imperfect debugging software reliability growth model. Numerical illustration supports the optimal release policies.
An age-dependent repair model is proposed. The notion of the “calendar age” of the product and the degree of repair are used to define the virtual age of the product. The virtual failure rate function and the virtual hazard function related to the lifetime of the product are discussed. Under a nonhomogeneous Poisson process scenario the expected warranty costs for repairable products associated with linear pro-rata, nonrenewing free replacement and renewing free replacement warranties are evaluated. Illustration of the results is given by numerical and graphical examples. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.
Modeling always has been at the core of both organizational design and information systems (IS) development. Models enable decision makers to filter out the irrelevant complexities of the real world, so that efforts can be directed toward the most important parts of the system under study. However, both business analysts and IS professionals may find it difficult to navigate through a maze of theoretical paradigms, methodological approaches, and representational formalisms that have been proposed for both business process modeling (BPM) and information systems modeling (ISM). This paper sets out to put an order to this chaos by proposing an evaluation framework and a novel taxonomy of BPM and ISM techniques. These findings, coupled with a detailed review of BPM and ISM techniques, can assist decision makers in comparatively evaluating and selecting suitable modeling techniques, depending on the characteristics and requirements of individual projects.
This paper presents a holistic framework for managing the maintenance function heretofore inundated by myriad tools, trappings, practices, and prescriptions. It begins by reviewing the concepts, state-of-art processes and standards available to help maintain today's complex systems. It then proposes a framework in which to couch the various maintenance functions in an organization. In doing so, this paper characterizes factors that breed complexity in maintaining today's operations. Next, it closely analyzes the strategic, tactical and operational aspects of maintenance and sets up a structure to help complete the tasks at each of these levels. The term “process” in this paper implies actions directly associated with maintenance, while “framework” embodies the supporting infrastructure. The results are clear statements of (1) the functionality required of enablers such as IT to abet maintenance; (2) the distinctive capabilities extended by modern maintenance engineering; and (3) the critical requirement of relationship competencies in maintenance. This work sums up decades spent in maintenance shops, engineering, standardization, and research in maintenance management.
Many service products are installed in a complex system that is operated only when the entire system is completed. The time from their installation to commissioning, called a dormant state in this article, may take several years for systems such as complete buildings or aircraft. Warranties for the products may cover the time starting from their installation to a certain time. Warranty cost on replacements for such products is different from normal products without any dormant state. This article analyses the replacement cost for nonrepairable services products from a manufacturer perspective. We consider four warranty policies, which include two types of warranty terms (i.e., nonrenewing or renewing) and two types of replacements (i.e., with preventive replacement or replacement only upon failures). Relationships between the failure patterns at the dormant state and at the operating state are also discussed. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the methodology described in this article.
The Maintenance Management Framework describes and reviews the concept, process and framework of modern maintenance management of complex systems; concentrating specifically on modern modelling tools (deterministic and empirical) for maintenance planning and scheduling. It presents a new perspective of maintenance management by:
• focusing on the course of maintenance actions;
• presenting a structure that ensures proper support for current maintenance managers;
• clarifying the functionality that is required from information technology when applied to maintenance and the functions of modern maintenance engineering; and
• creating a set of practical models for maintenance management planning and scheduling.
The discussion of all of these issues is supported through the use of case studies.
The Maintenance Management Framework will be beneficial for engineers and professionals involved in: maintenance management, maintenance engineering, operations management, quality, etc. It will also be of interest to graduate students and researchers in this field.
Dr Adolfo Crespo Márquez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Management, School of Engineering at the University of Seville. Within the area of maintenance, he has extensively participated in many engineering and consulting projects for numerous companies and for the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education.
Analyzing maintenance as an integrated system with objectives, strategies and processes that need to be planned, designed, engineered, and controlled using statistical and optimization techniques, the theme of this book is the strategic holistic system approach for maintenance. This approach enables maintenance decision makers to view maintenance as a provider of a competitive edge not a necessary evil. Encompassing maintenance systems; maintenance strategic and capacity planning, planned and preventive maintenance, work measurements and standards, material (spares) control, maintenance operations and control, planning and scheduling, maintenance quality, training, and others, this book gives readers an understanding of the relevant methodology and how to apply it to real-world problems in industry. Each chapter includes a number exercises and is suitable as a textbook or a reference for a professionals and practitioners whilst being of interest to industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and industrial management students. It can also be used as a textbook for short courses on maintenance in industry. This text is the second edition of the book, which has four new chapters added and three chapters are revised substantially to reflect development in maintenance since the publication of the first edition. The new chapters cover reliability centered maintenance, total productive maintenance, e-maintenance and maintenance performance, productivity and continuous improvement © John Wiley and Sons 1999. And Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.
The paper presents information on new standards for quality management systems, ISO 9000/2000. Differences between the set of ISO 9000/1994 standards, that are not valid now, and a new one are presented. Special interest is focused on new features of the system, e.g. process approach, flexibilty of the standards regarding their use in all kinds of work organizations, documentation of the system, principles of continual improvement, self-assesment of the organization.
This article has no abstract
The main focus of this study is on the modelling of the warranty claims and evaluating the warranty expenses. The cost of each warranty claim depends on the non-zero length of the repair time. Alternating renewal process is employed to model the operating and repair times. New results for alternating renewal process in finite horizon are derived. They are used to evaluate the warranty costs over the warranty period under non-renewing free replacement policy and over the life cycle of the product. Examples are provided to illustrate the ideas. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.
In this paper, we investigate the effect of the warranty cost on optimization of the economic manufacturing quality (EMQ). This is done for a deteriorating process where the production process shifts from the in-control state to the out-of-control state following a general discrete probability distribution. Once the production process goes out of control, the production process produces some defective items. The defective item cost includes reworking and warranty costs. Thus, in order to economically operate a production-inventory system with products sold under warranty, the tradeoffs among the production setup, inventory, and defective item cost, including the reworked cost before sale and the warranty cost after sale, needed to be analysed. This objective in this paper is to determine the production lot size while minimizing the total cost per unit of time per unit of time. Various special cases are presented. Two of them are extensions of results obtained previously in the literature. Finally, a numerical example is given which uses a discrete Weibull probability distribution. Sensitivity analysis of the model with respect to cost and time parameters is also performed.
This paper deals with the problem of estimating the expected warranty cost/unit sold for the case where the item usage is intermittent over the warranty period and the failure of item is dependent on item usage. We propose two models for item failure and obtain results for the failure-free warranty policy. We consider both repairable and nonrepairable items.
The main focus of this study is on the modelling of the warranty claims and evaluating the warranty expenses. The cost of each warranty claim depends on the non-zero length of the repair time. Alternating renewal process is employed to model the operating and repair times. New results for alternating renewal process in finite horizon are derived. They are used to evaluate the warranty costs over the warranty period under non-renewing free replacement policy and over the life cycle of the product. Examples are provided to illustrate the ideas. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Every business (mining, processing, manufacturing and service-oriented businesses such as transport, health, utilities, communication)
needs a variety of equipment to deliver its outputs. Equipment is an asset that is critical for business success in the fiercely
competitive global economy. However, equipment degrades with age and usage and ultimately become non-operational and businesses
incur heavy losses when their equipment is not in full operational mode. For example, in open cut mining, the loss in revenue
resulting from a typical dragline being out of action is around one million dollars per day and the loss in revenue from a
747 plane being out of action is roughly half a million dollars per day. Non-operational equipment leads to delays in delivery
of goods and services and this in turn causes customer dissatisfaction and loss of goodwill.
This paper presents overviews of both a manufacturing enterprise modelling and quality performance analysis used to perform a number of successful business process re-engineering (BPR) effects. The framework presented in this paper can support the analysis of activities and information flows within the scope of manufacturing application in BPR. In addition, the paper discusses the selection of techniques and IDEF0 tools used to implement the modelling and performance capabilities. To demonstrate and validate the modelling method and process graph, an example has been carried out in designing the product of a television manufacturing company.
Today most products are sold with a warranty that offers financial protection to consumers due to failures during the warranty period. Depending on the type of product, its inherent quality/reliability, and a host of other variables including the warranty period, warranty cost could be a significant portion of the overall product cost. Therefore, it is important to predict warranty cost accurately. However, most existing warranty cost models are not realistic in the sense that perfect or minimal repair is assumed. This paper presents four new warranty cost models which all assume imperfect repair. Imperfect repair restores the system operating state to somewhere between “as good as new” (perfect repair) and “as bad as old” (minimal repair), and could include two extreme cases: minimal and perfect repair. Thus, the warranty cost model with imperfect repair is more general and realistic. Warranty of a k-out-of-n system with imperfect maintenance is also studied in this paper. To gain advantages in highly competitive markets, manufacturers may have to enhance their warranty offerings. In warranty cost models B and D, preventive maintenance of unfailed components is considered. Model D considers a k-out-of-n system with opportunistic maintenance where partial failure is allowed. Under this kind of warranty policy, consumers not only receive free repairs upon premature failures, but also free preventive maintenance. This paper models imperfect repair using quasi-renewal processes introduced by Wang and Pham (1996). Model developments in this paper show that quasi-renewal processes are a convenient tool for warranty modeling with imperfect repair.
This article shows the process of modelling a reference maintenance management framework (MMF) that represents the general requirements of the asset management specification PAS 55. The modelled MMF is expressed using the standardized and publicly available Business Process Modelling (BPM) languages UML 2.1 (Unified Modelling Language) and BPMN 1.0 (BPM Notation). The features of these notations allow to easily integrate the modelled processes into the general information system of an organization and to create a flexible structure that can be quickly and even automatically adapted to new necessities. This article presents a brief review about the usage of UML in maintenance projects, general characteristics of PAS 55, modelling concepts and their applications in the project of modelling the MMF. The arguments underlying the methodology and the choice of UML and BPMN are exposed. The general architecture of the suggested MMF is described and modelled through diagrams elucidating the general operation of PAS 55. From this development is appreciated the operation structure of a software tool that can incorporate MIMOSA standards and that can be made suitable for e-maintenance functions, as an alternative to the commercial systems. Finally, some conclusions about the modelled framework are presented. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Estimating warranty costs during the life cycle of a product is
important to the manufacturer, who has to plan for creating a fund for
warranty reserves. Replacement or repair costs associated with
product-failure within the warranty period are drawn from this fund.
This paper considers a policy where warranty is not renewed on product
failure within the warranty period but the product is minimally repaired
by the manufacturer. This implies that, on repair, the failure rate of
the item remains the same as just prior to failure. Repair costs are
assumed to depend on the product age. Such policies are suitable for
complex and expensive products where repair typically involves a small
part of the product. s-Expected warranty costs and amount of warranty
reserves, based on a selected level of s-confidence, are derived.
Applications of the results to various product market situations are
considered. The results demonstrate how cost information can be used to
decide and determine the warranty length
Warranty cost estimation for multiple products is considered. The
decision variables include the price, warranty time, production
quantity, and lot size. System constraints on the above decision
variables are based on absolute minimum and maximum values between which
those variables should lie. Several goals are considered at different
levels of priorities. Some of these goals may be conflicting. The goals
considered included operation within a limited resource capacity, the
achievement of a specified market share for each product, limitation on
the total warranty cost as a given proportion of total sales, limitation
of the warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total
warranty reserve for all products, and attainment of a minimum level of
warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total
warranty reserve cost. A goal programming approach is used to solve the
formulated problem. An example is illustrated using the proposed
formulation, and goal achievements are discussed. Sensitivity analysis
is also conducted for some of the model parameters
In this paper, a cost model with warranty cost, time to remove
each error detected in the software system, and risk cost due to
software failure is developed. A software reliability model based on
non-homogeneous Poisson process is used. The optimal release policies to
minimize the expected total software cost are discussed. A software tool
is also developed using Excel and Visual Basic to facilitate the task of
determining the optimal software release time. Numerical examples are
provided to illustrate the results
The Practical Guide to Business Process Reengineering Using IDEF0
- C G Feldmann
C.G. Feldmann, The Practical Guide to Business Process Reengineering Using
IDEF0, Dorset House Publishing, 1998.
Petroleum, Petrochemical and Natural Gas Industries— Collection and Exchange of Reliability and Maintenance Data for Equipment, European Committee for Standardization
- Iso Dis
ISO/DIS 14224/2004, Petroleum, Petrochemical and Natural Gas Industries— Collection and Exchange of Reliability and Maintenance Data for Equipment, European Committee for Standardization, Brussels, 2012.
Petroleum, Petrochemical and Natural Gas Industries – Collection and Exchange of Reliability and Maintenance Data for Equipment
- Iso Dis
- Iso
- Tc
ISO/DIS 14224, ISO TC 67/SC/WG 4, Petroleum, Petrochemical and Natural Gas Industries – Collection and Exchange of Reliability and Maintenance Data for Equipment, Standards, Norway, 2004.
1-1998, IEEE Standard for Functional Modelling Language-Syntax and Semantics for IDEF0 Designing performance analysis and IDEF0 for enterprise modelling in BPR
IEEE Std 1320.1-1998, IEEE Standard for Functional Modelling Language-Syntax
and Semantics for IDEF0, IEEE, New York, 1998.
[27] S.-H. Kim, K.-J. Jang, Designing performance analysis and IDEF0 for enterprise
modelling in BPR, International Journal of Production Economics 76 (2002)
121–133.
Determining an accurate estimate at completion. National Contract Management Journal
- D Christensen
Practical applications of AHP for the improvement of warranty management
- V Gonzá Lez
- J F Gó Mez
- A Crespo
V. Gonzá lez, J.F. Gó mez, A. Crespo, Practical applications of AHP for the improvement of warranty management, Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering 17
(2) (2011) 163-182.