Too many manufacturers ignore the information generated by their customer service processes. Now an emerging set of tools can help them improve products and processes by capturing, analyzing, and applying this valuable data.
The great philosopher Sir Francis Bacon understood that knowledge is power. Today, manufacturers looking for every advantage in an increasingly competitive global marketplace are seeking to unlock the wisdom contained in their service data.
Manufacturers are tapping service data — which encompasses a wide range of aftermarket information — to drive continuous improvement processes as well as to help design teams make critically important adjustments to products. Many manufacturers are using advanced database software and sophisticated product lifecycle management (PLM) tools to feed service data to their product design and development teams.
"Manufacturers seeking to reduce costs will benefit from the use of data generated by service and support processes," says Marc McCluskey, service director at AMR Research in a recent study. "Companies must incorporate service data at the product level into the design process if they hope to learn from customer experience and improve future product generations."
Marc Halpern, research director at Gartner, agrees. "By capturing service data, manufacturers can address issues early by passing diagnostic data to product development engineers. If the engineers see certain repair patterns and defects, they can adjust the design of the product to make it more reliable. I hate to say this, but sometimes they don't. Depending on the cost to the manufacturer and the threshold of pain for the customer, manufacturers would rather reap the ongoing maintenance revenue than fix the problem."
Manufacturers can tap into a wide range of software tools to capture and analyze service data. CRM systems can be used to collect and analyze historical trends, Halpern says, and ERP systems can be used to extract information on parts and suppliers. Statistical analysis software and data collection sensors also play a role.
