Optimization Of The Loaner Number In An After-sales Service

After-sales service is offered by the manufacturer or dealers after selling products to customers,and the service may contain products usage introduction,door to door service,delivery and installation,commissioning and maintenance,etc.After-sales service has become an important means to increase revenue,profit and gain competitive advantage for most manufacturing enterprises.In a sense,after sales service can be understood as a product support strategy.There are kinds of product support activities,such as having the use of product diagnosis mechanism,the storage of a certain amount of spare parts,providing loaners to customers and so on.Among this,providing loaners as an important product support strategy has got many attentions.Loaners refer that manufacturer or its service center need provide loaners with free of charge during the failed products repairment.The purpose of providing loaners is to reduce the inconvenience caused by products failed.To improve customer satisfaction has become an important means to obtain competitive edge especially in the durable goods.In the after-sales service,to provide customers with loaners or to pay the cost of car rental is an important measurement for manufacturers or service providers.On the one hand,providing free loaners can help manufacturers or its service center to improve customer satisfaction and brand reputation;On the other hand,it will increase the cost of the manufacturer or its service center inevitably.Therefore,from the perspective of effective incentives,the use of loaners will encourage manufacturers or service centers to improve service efficiency and reduce service costs.Based on the thought of state transition probability and queuing theory,considering loaners purchase cost,daily maintenance cost,insurance premium and due to the lack of loaners and paid rental fee,to establish a loaners total cost model and a loaner number optimization model.Then through the MATLAB simulation,we verify the results of models.Finally,we analyze different parameters effects on the results.