After-Sales Service Contracting for Excellence in Life-Cycle Cost Management: Numerical Experiments and Systematic Review of Analytical Models

This research adds to the literature and provides insight to practice via three essays that increase understanding about the applications and consequences of the two new approaches to the after-sales service governance: warranty contract and performance-based contracts. First, we attempted to enhance our knowledge of the modeling of the after-sales service process. In the first essay, the research papers with analytical models of after-sales services to present current trends, issues, and future research directions in the literature are classified. In the second essay, the effect of the warranty contract on the supplier's product quality improvement efforts in the context of capital goods is examined. Three sets of optimization models reveal that the existence of a warranty improves product quality. In the third essay, the performance-based contract is examined in the context of the warranty contract. The numerical experimentations conducted demonstrate that the performance-based contract is superior to the warranty contract in terms of the supplier's product quality efforts and the customer's total cost of after-sales services. The alignment of incentives based on the product performance tackles the issues presented in the traditional after-sales service contracting. Collectively, the three studies presented in this research expand our understanding of after-sales service contracts. Thus, the research presents managerial implications and adds to the existing body of knowledge in after-sales service research

Service outsourcing under different supply chain power structures

This paper studies the impact of service outsourcing under three supply chain power structures: manufacturer-Stackelberg, vertical-Nash and retailer-Stackelberg supply chains. We first investigate price and service decisions by comparing the integrated channel and the decentralized channel with service outsourcing. It is found that a lower retail price or a higher service level could occur in the decentralized channel with service outsourcing compared to those in the integrated channel, but they never occur simultaneously. Next, we examine the manufacturer's channel strategies, and demonstrate that service outsourcing can always help the manufacturer earn more profit from the decentralized channel than from the integrated channel in the manufacturer-Stackelberg and retailer-Stackelberg markets, as long as the retailer's service investment is sufficiently efficient. However, in the vertical-Nash supply chain, this occurs only when the manufacturer is inefficient and the retailer is efficient enough in service provision. Finally, comparisons of channel efficiency and numerical analysis are provided