Warranty and Preventive Maintenance for Remanufactured Products : Modeling and Analysis

The exponential increase in the development of technology coupled with the customers’ immense desire to possess the newest technological products makes for truncated product lifespans, which instigates a substantial upsurge in their rate of disposal. Attempts have been made to establish specialized product recovery facilities with the intention of diminishing the volume of accumulated waste delivered to landfills using product recovery procedure such as remanufacturing. The economic benefits produced by remanufacturing also portray the role of product recovery in a more attractive light.

The quality of a remanufactured product is uncertain for some consumers. Therefore, these consumers possess insecurities in deciding whether or not the remanufactured products will render the same expected performance. This ambiguity regarding a remanufactured product could possibly result in the consumer deciding against its purchase. With such consumer apprehension, remanufacturers often seek market mechanisms that provide reassurance as to the stable durability that these products still maintain. One strategy that the remanufacturers often use is the utilization of the premise of offering product warranties with preventive maintenance on their products.

This book is concerned with the practice and theory of warranty management and preventive maintenance, particularly in relation to remanufactured products’ warranties. Models developed in this book can be used for making the right decisions in offering renewable, nonrenewable, one and two dimensional warranty policies, and for managerial decision in considering maintenance contracts or outsourcing maintenance for remanufactured components and products.

Ammar Y. Alqahtani, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He received his BS degree with first honors from the Industrial Engineering Department of King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May 2008. Being awarded with a full scholarship by the King Abdulaziz University (KAU), he received his MS degree in Industrial Engineering from Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston in 2012. He received his PhD degree in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, in 2017. He has been employed as a faculty member by King Abdulaziz University since December 2008. His research interests are in the areas of environmentally conscious manufacturing, product recovery, reverse logistics, closed-loop supply chains (CLSC), sustainable operations and sustainability, simulation and statistical analysis and modeling with applications in CLSC and multiple lifecycle products. He has co-authored several technical papers published in edited books, journals and international conference proceedings.

Surendra M. Gupta, Ph.D., is a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and the Director of the Laboratory for Responsible Manufacturing at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He received his BE in Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, MBA from Bryant University, and MSIE and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University. He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Massachusetts, USA. Dr. Gupta's research interests span the areas of Production/Manufacturing Systems and Operations Research. He is mostly interested in Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, Reverse and Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Disassembly Modeling and Remanufacturing. He has authored or coauthored twelve books and approximately 600 technical papers published in edited books, journals and international conference proceedings. His publications have received over 11,700 citations (with an h-index of 53) from researchers all over the world in journals, proceedings, books, and dissertations. He has traveled to all seven continents viz., Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America and presented his work at international conferences on six continents. Dr. Gupta has taught over 150 courses in such areas as operations research, inventory theory, queuing theory, engineering economy, supply chain management, and production planning and control. Among the many recognitions received, he is the recipient of outstanding research award and outstanding industrial engineering professor award (in recognition of teaching excellence) from Northeastern University as well as a national outstanding doctoral dissertation advisor award.