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 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."
Source: Managing Automation, http://www.managingautomation.com