Aiming at the problem of spares inventory in warranty logistics, this paper applies Markov modeling to the optimization of spares during the warranty period which considers the case where the repairable item is discarded, analyzes the transfer process of spares in operation, and stock, repair and discard of spares. In the Markov model, the actual situation of installation quantity of components in the system is finite, is taken into consideration and an optimal strategy is introduced. By applying a convex optimization algorithm based on the Markov model, the optimization spares configuration scheme is determined to minimize the cost under a specified availability. Meanwhile this paper builds an application case for this model, and verifies the model and algorithm proposed in this paper by simulation.There are three innovation points of this research. 1) A repairable item that may be discarded is taken into consideration in the warranty period. 2) Build partly repairable spares optimization model by Markov under variational warranty period. 3) A suitable convex optimization algorithm, which can find the optimal point through solving a large number of iterative calculations quickly, is designed.
I TRODUCTIOWith complexity of products increasing and fierce market competition, warranty has become the important means of non-price competition in the market considerations of manufacturers while warranty periods are increasing. However, the warranty cost has become a huge burden on enterprises which typically varies from 1.5%~10% of the total sales of commodities [1]. According to some analyses, the spares cost account for 30%~35% of the large-sized complex products life cycle cost. Reducing the spares cost can help to control the whole life cycle cost. Meanwhile, among the three factors influencing the complex system downtimes, spares waiting time weigh more than the corrective maintenance downtime and the preventive maintenance downtime. In the product warranty period, not only ineffective manufacturer spares management will increase its warranty cost, but shortage of spares contributing to long downtimes will bring customers a great economic loss and dissatisfaction with the product. In addition, for large-sized complex system under a certain level of reliability, perfectly repairable components may be discarded with the increasing times of maintenance in long warranty periods, indicating characteristics of partly repairable components. In these mentioned cases, traditional researches for perfectly repairable spares models cannot completely meet new requirements of engineering. Less system down time and higher availability can be realized with timely and sufficient supplies of spares in maintenance processes, and to achieve that, scientific optimization decisions are necessary for partly repairable spares configurations in warranty periods. Further, improving the user claims experience and minimizing the warranty cost to reduce the economic burden of post-sales services can also be realized.Currently, even though many...