Root-cause analysis in the aftersales management

This article focuses on one of the steps proposed by the authors as a framework for improving the management of post-sale service. Specifically, the referred step tries to apply root cause analysis of failures to improve the organization of warranty support. This analysis can help make better decisions within the scope of after-sales service, for example, whether a particular incident should be treated under warranty or not. This article begins with an introduction to the current concept of warranty, briefly describing the proposed framework and the relevant literature related to such customer service. Thus, the reader can place the step to be developed in a context of useful tools and methodologies for the management of postsale service. Therefore, the main aspects of Root Cause Analysis are defined with the intention to apply these concepts in the management of those incidents reported by the user. With this objective, this article aims to adapt a developed and applied tool of the maintenance management (Root Cause Analysis) to a new field, in this case, the customer service. At the end of this article the main contributions for this work are summarized.

[1]  W. Blischke,et al.  Warranty Management and Product Manufacture , 2005 .

[2]  Bruce D'Ambrosio,et al.  Monitoring and diagnosis of a multistage manufacturing process using Bayesian networks , 2000, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing.

[3]  V Gonz√°lez D√≠az,et al.  Warranty cost models state-of-art: A practical review to the framework of warranty cost management , 2009 .

[4]  Dean L. Gano.  Apollo Root Cause Analysis: A New Way of Thinking , 2003 .

[5]  Sten Bay Jørgensen,et al.  A functional HAZOP methodology , 2010, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[6]  S. D. Probert,et al.  Reducing the cost of preventive maintenance (PM) through adopting a proactive reliability-focused culture , 2006 .

[7]  Anthony Mark Doggett,et al.  A Statistical Comparison of Three Root Cause Analysis Tools , 2004 .

[8]  J. Moubray.  Reliability-centred maintenance , 1995 .

[9]  Jinji Gao,et al.  Study and application of Reliability-centered Maintenance considering Radical Maintenance , 2010 .

[10]  M. Paradies,et al.  Root cause analysis at Savannah River plant (nuclear power station) , 1988, Conference Record for 1988 IEEE Fourth Conference on Human Factors and Power Plants,.

[11]  F. Peres,et al.  Integration of warranty as a decision variable in the process of recertification of parts resulting from end-of-life system dismantling , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Quality and Reliability.

[12]  Adolfo Crespo Marquez,et al.  A practical method for the maintainability assessment in industrial devices using indicators and specific attributes , 2012, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[13]  S. D. Probert,et al.  Development and implementation of preventive-maintenance practices in Nigerian industries , 2006 .

[14]  Anders L. Madsen,et al.  Applications of object-oriented Bayesian networks for condition monitoring, root cause analysis and decision support on operation of complex continuous processes , 2005, Comput. Chem. Eng..

[15]  John Crocker,et al.  Age-related maintenance versus reliability centred maintenance: a case study on aero-engines , 2000, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[16]  Athena Zitrou,et al.  Bayes geometric scaling model for common cause failure rates , 2010, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[17]  László Sikos,et al.  Reliability, availability and maintenance optimisation of heat exchanger networks , 2010 .

[18]  Sebastian Martorell,et al.  Non-homogeneous Poisson Process (NHPP), stochastic model applied to evaluate the economic impact of the failure in the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) , 2008 .

[19]  Leith Hitchcock.  Integrating Root Cause Analysis Methodologies , 2006 .

[20]  Adolfo Crespo Marquez,et al.  A framework for warranty management in industrial assets , 2012, Comput. Ind..

[21]  Adolfo Crespo,et al.  Approach to Analyzing Root Causes in the Management of Warranty Support , 2013 .

[22]  Luis Barberá Martínez,et al.  Contractual and quality aspects on warranty: Best practices for the warranty management and its maturity assessment , 2012 .

[23]  George E. P. Box,et al.  Statistical process monitoring and feedback adjustment: a discussion , 1992 .

[24]  James A. Stori,et al.  A Bayesian network approach to root cause diagnosis of process variations , 2005 .

[25]  D. N. Prabhakar Murthy,et al.  Product warranty and reliability , 2006, Ann. Oper. Res..

[26]  Matthieu van der Heijden,et al.  On the availability of a k-out-of-N system given limited spares and repair capacity under a condition based maintenance strategy , 2004, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..