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Warranty and quality management solution from IBM
Executive summary Business view Technical details
The goal
Resolve and prevent component failures
Share information across your enterprise for faster corrective actions. Utilize historic data to enhance component designs and prevent future failures. Reduce automotive component failures and warranty claims. Our solution can help you monitor key performance indicators from across the enterprise, including customer call centers, service bay diagnostics and telematics.

The advantage
Benefit from IBM's extensive experience
We can help you develop an effective warranty management strategy and improve product quality because we have over 100 application and domain experts globally with proven solution implementation and roll-out capabilities.
  • We have more than 25 years of automotive industry experience with a client base that includes major automotive suppliers, OEMs, distributors and dealers.
  • Our unique server-based Efficient Diagnostic and Information System (EDIS) helps 90% of vehicle failures to get diagnosed in less than 15 minutes.
  • Our leadership in Unstructured Information Management Analysis (UIMA) enables us to expand market choices and help reduce implementation costs.
  • IBM has developed the Parametric Analysis Center (PAC), which enables automakers to collect and analyze large quantities of vehicle diagnostics data from handheld tools, vehicle flight recorders and call centers.
  • We have a track record of successful implementations of complementary systems in the areas of vehicle diagnostics and telematics.
  • Our solution is designed to help manufacturers comply with government reporting regulations under the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act.

The benefits
Leverage powerful analytics
Warranty and quality management from IBM delivers warranty-related benefits to automakers. The solution is designed to:
  • Integrate critical symptom, cause and failure, and cost information across multiple formats—including structured, semi-structured and unstructured data from various sources, such as:
    • Bill of materials (BoM)
    • Parts traceability
    • Supplier data
    • Dealer diagnostics applications
    • In-car software
    • Field reports
    • Call centers
    • Internet chat rooms
  • Foster innovation with best-of-breed analytics that correlate critical vehicle failure information to help automobile engineers identify the root cause and patterns of failure.
  • Combine near real-time and historical analysis to facilitate long-term quality improvement, product development and strategic planning.
  • Provide a unified view of this diverse data that helps users identify the most relevant information quickly, increasing productivity and improving analysis and visualization of failure events.
  • Deliver virtual real-time access to information with sophisticated search capabilities that allow for searches across multiple data sources and formats.
  • Support seamless information exchange among various lines of business within your enterprise.
  • Enable collaboration across the automotive community, integrating manufacturers' applications with external applications used by dealers, suppliers, regulatory agencies and other partners.

The approach
A scenario: responding quickly to safety issues
Consider this scenario as an example of the benefits of this solution. A recently marketed new model car consistently malfunctions in a way that could affect consumer safety. Consumers worldwide have reported the problem through Internet chat rooms or regional dealers. An early warning system installed at the automotive manufacturer monitors and analyzes the semi-structured failure reports and call center data.

Armed with this data, the service department uses a unified information management system to share the details of the failure with quality engineers and vehicle designers. They conclude that the problem is caused by a defective design of the sensor component within the transmission control system of the particular model. The manufacturer immediately recalls the vehicles for manual repair or perhaps instructs dealers to recalibrate the sensors with wireless calibration systems. The fast response helps prevent injuries and a possible catastrophic event.

The financial advantage
Reduce component failure costs
Using Vehicle Telematics and the Parametric Analysis Center, we have measured a 5-10% warranty cost reduction through more precise failure analysis and faster corrective actions, based on near real-time parametric data remotely transmitted directly from malfunction vehicles.

Our solution is designed to help you:
  • Cut warranty costs by improving the quality and reliability of components.
  • Expedite the recall process to avoid a potential chain of failures and reduce related costs.
  • Utilize insight from historic data to prevent future failures and limit the costs associated with them.
  • Avoid enormous liability judgments by lowering the chances for component failures that could cause injury and death.

Next steps
 
Questions about this solution? Contact an IBM automotive specialist.