The role of the service centre in improvement processes.

V.T. Petkova, P.C. Sander, A.C. Brombacher

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    17 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Product reliability is the final result of a process that starts with marketing/development and that ends with service and, later, decommissioning and when possible reuse. The contribution of design and production in this chain is well understood. There are many papers and books about methods and tools that help to develop and produce reliable products. Much less attention has been given to the mutual co-operation of the different departments in the whole chain. In particular the contribution of service in the ongoing improvement loop is not yet well recognized. In this paper we demonstrate that on a company level it has advantages to see service as a department that is crucial in the control loop over the product creation process. Service is able to collect vital information about the field behaviour of products in interaction with customers. If this information is well analysed and communicated, the recurrence of old problems in new products will be drastically reduced and so will the expenses on recalls, repairs, warranties and liabilities.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)431-437
    Number of pages7
    JournalQuality and Reliability Engineering International
    Volume15
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1999

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