Optimization of mean life of brands under cost constraints with an empirical study on mobile handsets

Purpose – To a customer, higher quality is synonymous to higher expected life. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine the existing life of the competing brands in a product field and suggest an improvement plan, under cost constraints, so that all the brands can be placed on a comparable scale. Design/methodology/approach – For this, we consider Cox proportional hazard model for estimation of the mean life and suggest an optimization procedure for improving mean life under cost constraint. As the cost of redesigning the product is mostly known, the authors propose to take corresponding repairing cost as their surrogates and optimize the expected life for each brand subject to a fixed level of cost. Findings – From Cox's model one can identify the causes of failure for the brands under consideration. Further, under the optimization techniques proposed herein one can order the brands for comparison purpose. Practical implications – We have applied the proposed optimization techniques for ordering mobile handsets. In fact, based on the result obtained by our proposed method, the design engineers or the brand planners can take necessary actions to increase the product life, correct product design and improve the product performance. Originality/value – The cost minimization approach under Cox's cause‐wise setup can provide a tool for comparing different brands of different prices and order them to know the best performer.