Warranty Cost Analysis for Products with a Dormant State

Most building services products are installed while a building is constructed, but they are not operated until the building is commissioned. The warranty of the products may cover the time starting from their installation to the end of the warranty period. Prior to the commissioning of the building, the products are at a dormant mode (i.e., not operated) but protected by the warranty. For such products, both the usage intensity and the failure patterns are different from those with continuous usage intensity and failure patterns. This paper develops warranty cost models for repairable products with a dormant mode from both the manufacturer's and buyer's perspectives. Relationships between the failure patterns at the dormant mode and at the operational mode are also discussed. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are used to demonstrate the applicability of the methodology derived in the paper.