Warranty improvement is the act of reducing costs related to product defect or failure before the end of the warranty period. This blog post considers the aspect of warranty improvement within the context of Product Development. Manufacturers need to prioritize warranty reduction in their Product Development initiatives.
Warranty incidents often lead to dissatisfaction, because products fall short of customer expectations communicated by the warranty document. Tangible costs of these incidents include repair or replacement of defective product. For manufacturers with field-installed products, costs can include considerable time and expense for trained service associates to correct the situation. Intangible costs include loss of customer loyalty, which may eventually lead to market share reduction.
To take action on warranty cost reduction, manufacturing firms need an information system that collects warranty data. The data needs to be easily accessed and visible by executives, particularly Engineering, Manufacturing and Sales leaders. Regular review of warranty data should be part of firms’ cadence of product improvement meetings. A suggestion is that warranty data is reviewed quarterly.
When warranty data is collected, analyzed and reviewed by executives, priorities can be agreed. Implementation of the priorities needs assigned resources in the Product Development organization. The investment in resources needs to return to the company lower costs, better products, and ultimately higher customer satisfaction.
Summarizing, warranty improvement is an important part of a manufacturing firm’s Product Development strategy. Wilmarco Technologies has delivered warranty reduction solutions in highly technical product industries. Contact us today to learn how this can be done in your organization.