12.  Accrued Warranty Reserve

 

The Company provides for the estimated costs of warranties at the time revenue is recognized. The specific terms and conditions of those warranties vary depending upon the microturbine product sold and geography of sale.  The Company’s product warranties generally start from the delivery date and continue for up to twenty-four months. Factors that affect the Company’s warranty obligation include product failure rates, anticipated hours of product operations and costs of repair or replacement in correcting product failures. These factors are estimates that may change based on new information that becomes available each period. Similarly, the Company also accrues the estimated costs to address reliability repairs on products no longer in warranty when, in the Company’s judgment, and in accordance with a specific plan developed by the Company, it is prudent to provide such repairs. The Company assesses the adequacy of recorded warranty liabilities quarterly and makes adjustments to the liability as necessary. When the Company has sufficient evidence that product changes are altering the historical failure occurrence rates, the impact of such changes is then taken into account in estimating future warranty liabilities. During the three months ended December 31, 2016, the Company recorded a one-time non-cash warranty provision of approximately $5.2 million to retrofit proactively select non-Signature Series C200 microturbines with the more robust new Signature Series generator components to improve product performance and reliability. The remaining non-cash warranty provision of approximately $0.6 million for this reliability repair program was reversed during the three months ended December 31, 2017 because the program was completed. Changes in accrued warranty reserve during the nine months ended December 31, 2017 are as follows (in thousands):