Optimal Burn-in Time under Cumulative Pro-Rata Replacement Warranty

In this paper, optimal bum-in time to minimize the total mean cost, which is the sum of manufacturing cost with burn-in and cumulative warranty-related cost, is obtained. When the products with cumulative pro-rata warranty have high failure rate in the early period (infant mortality period), a burn-in procedure is adopted to eliminate early product failures. After burn-in, the posterior product life distribution and the warranty-related cost are dependent on burn-in time; long burn-in period may reduce the warranty-related cost, but it increases the manufacturing cost. The paper provides a methodology to obtain total mean cost under burn-in and cumulative pro-rata warranty. Property of the optimal burn-in time is analyzed, and numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are studied.