Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This main objective of this study is to determine if common platform dishwashing products have similar warranty failure rates when brands and price points are variable. Data for this study are based upon over four years of data involving one million individual sales and over 150,000 warranty failures of a common platform dishwashing appliance. It is concluded that there are similar failure rates between common platform dishwashers when different brands are at the same price point. Other conclusions indicate that there are non-similar failure rates between common platform dishwashers when the same brand is at different price points.

There is a significant resource cost in the development of products. To minimise the resource cost and maximise the return on investment, many companies develop several new products from one common platform. Common platforms spread across several separate brands. Different brands attract different customers who have different perceptions of quality. Customers view quality as a mix of utility and reliability and expect high reliability during the warranty period. It is often assumed by the developer that the warranty failure rate will be similar for common product platforms even when products are marketed under different price points. The goal of this research is to test if this common assumption is accurate.

Keywords

Quality warranty appliance common platform reliability perception brand management consumer goods marketing price

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akdemiz

M.B.

(2009). Perception versus reality: A comprehensive examination of brand quality dynamics, market signalling, and performance interfaces. Doctor of Philosophy, Michigan State University.

Amrouche

, & Zaccour

(2009). A shelf-dependant wholesale price when manufacturer and retailer brands compete. OR Spectrum, 31(2), 361–383.

Baker

(2012). A study in the difference of warranty failures of common platform different brand name dishwashing appliances. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana State University.

Baker

, & Badar

M.A.

(2012). Reliability comparison of common platform different brand appliances. Global Sci-Tech, 4(3), 131–140.

Baker

, & Badar

M.A. A.

(2013, May 18–22). A study of part type failures of common platform appliances. In Krishnamurthy

& Chan

W.K.V.E.

(Eds), Proceedings of the 2013 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference (pp. 3348–3354). San Juan, Puerto Rico: IIE.

Blischke

W.R.

, & Murthy

D.N.P.

(1991). Product warranty management – I: A taxonomy for warranty policies. European Journal of Operational Research, 62(2), 127–141.

Blischke

W.R.

, & Murthy

D.N.P.

(1996). Product warranty handbook. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker.

Carsky

M.L.

, Dickinson

R.A.

, & Canedy, III

C.R.

(1998). The evolution of quality in consumer goods. Journal of Macro-marketing, 18(2), 132–143.

Cheng

J.M.-S

, Chen

L.S.-L.

, Lin

J.Y.-C.

& Wang

E.S.-T.

(2007). Do consumers perceive differences among national brands, international private labels, and local private labels. The Journal of Product and Brand Marketing, 16(6), 368–376.

10.

Deming

W.E.

(1982). Out of the crisis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

11.

Douglas

E.J.

, Glennon

D.C.

, & Lane

J.I.

(1993). Warranty, quality, and price in the US automobile market. Applied Economics, 25(1), 135–141.

12.

Ericson

, & Erixon

(1999). Controlling design variations: Modular product platforms. USA: ASME Press.

13.

Ghosh

, & Morita

(2008). An economic analysis of platform sharing. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 22(2), 164–186.

14.

Hultman

, Opoku

R.A.

, Salehi-Sangari

, Oghazi

, & Bui

Q.T.

(2008). Private label competition: The perspective of Swedish branded goods manufacturers. Management Research News, 31(2), 125–141.

15.

Juran

J.M.

, & Godfrey

A.B.

(2000). Juran’s quality handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.

16.

Karim

M.A.

, Smith

A.J.R.

, Halgamuge

S.K.

, & Islam

M.M.

(2008). A comparitive study of manufacturing practices and performance variables. International Journal of Production Economics, 112(2), 841–859.

17.

Mahi

(2002). Limiting consequences of consumer moral hazard under generous warranty plans. Doctor of Philosophy, University of Minnesota.

18.

Montgomery

D.C.

, & Runger

G.C.

(2007). Applied statistics and probability for engineers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

19.

Murthy

D.N.P.

(2006). Product warranty and reliability. Annual of Operation Research, 143(1), 133–146.

20.

Nepal

B.P.

(2005). An integrated framework for modular product architecture. Doctor of Philosophy, Wayne State Univeristy.

21.

NIST. (2010a). NIST/SEMATECH e-handbook of statistical methods, 1.3.6.7.1: Cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution [Online]. Washington, DC: NIST/ SEMATECH. Retrieved 7 November 2011, from http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/eda3671.htm

22.

NIST. (2010b). NIST/SEMATECH e-handbook of statistical methods, 7.3.1.1: Analysis of paired observations [Online]. Washington, DC: NIST/SEMATECH. Retrieved 13 February 2011, from http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/prc/section3/prc311.htm

23.

Pahl

, & Beitz

(1984). Engineering design: A systematic approach. London, UK: Spring-Verlang.

24.

Polatoglu

L.H.

(1995). Cost, revenue, and profit distributions in warranty analysis. Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

25.

Sahin

, & Polatoglu

(1998). Quality, warranty, and preventive maintenance. New York: Springer.

26.

Thomas

M.U.

(1998). Manufacturing systems control through warranty planning. In Migliore

, Randhawa

, Sullivan

W.G.

& Ahmad

M.M.

(Eds), Flexible automation and intelligent manufacturing. New York: Begell House.

27.

Vahie

, & Paswan

(2006). Private label brand image: Its relationship with store image and national brand. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, 34(1), 67–84.