Learning and Forgetting Effects on Maintenance Outsourcing

Abstract

This article studies the effects of learning and forgetting on the design of maintenance outsourcing contracts. Consider a situation in which a manufacturer offers an outsourcing contract to an external contractor to maintain a manufacturing process. Under the contract, the contractor schedules and performs preventive maintenance and repairs the process whenever a breakdown occurs. Two types of learning effects on the cost and time of performing preventive maintenance are considered: learning from experience (natural) and learning by a costly effort/investment. It is assumed that forgetting occurs under each learning type. A model is developed for designing an optimal outsourcing contract to maximize the manufacturer`s profit. An extensive numerical analysis is carried out to empirically demonstrate the effects of learning and forgetting on the optimal maintenance contract and the manufacturer`s profit.