Research On Manufacturer’s After-sales Service Period And The Final Order Of Service Part In Idling Period

Today, products have made the modular production and assembly into reality. Products are consisted of several kinds of parts. The durability of product makes it necessary for manufacturers to maintain some spare parts to repair the sold products, which is in order to fulfill after-sales service commitment, keep customer loyalty and improve company’s brand image. At the same time, under the background that the traditional manufacturing industry transits gradually to the service industry, after-sales service parts have become the profit source to chase for many enterprises for its higher profit rate than product. The fast technology update has shortened product life circle. In order to put their production line into production for new products, manufacturers will stop producing the old spare parts at the end of product life circle. However, manufacturers still need to hold a certain level of spare parts inventory to provide after-sales service when failure occurs. For reducing the related cost of service parts and responding rapidly to consumer needs, it is necessary for us to make a reasonable plan about after-sales service from the perspective of idling period.In this paper, the time range we study is the idling period after the end of product life circle. We study a triple closed-loop supply chain which is consisted of spare parts supplier, product manufacturer and consumer. Manufacturer purchases spare parts from parts supplier and provides parts to consumer. The problem we study is how to determine the optimal after-sales service period and the final order quantity of spare parts to make manufacturer get the maximum profit in after-sales service period. Our paper has reviewed literatures in domestic and abroad in fields of the final order of spare parts, after-sales service period and spare parts management in idling period. Based on reviewing these literatures, we build after-sales profit models which consider two situations: spare parts recycling and manufacturer’s maintenance capacity limit.Specifically speaking, the cores of this paper are as follows:Firstly, we have analyzed all of the after-sales service cost and revenue in idling period at the situation of considering spare parts recycling. Then the after-sales service profit model of manufacturer is established. By solving this model, we obtain the optimal after-sales service time and the final order quantity of spare parts which make manufacturer’s after-sales service profit maximum. At the same time, we also have analyzed how these two decision variables change with other factors.Secondly, on the basis of original description and hypothesis we describe the differences between original situation and new situation, and establish the after-sales service profit model of manufacturer at the situation of considering manufacturer’s maintenance capacity limit. By analyzing the model, we get the expressions of decision variables at this situation.Finally, we make the numerical analysis. Not only we have confirmed conclusions of theoretical research, but also we have made a further extension by analyzing the change rules of key variables.