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| Case Study |
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Refrigeration major goes "Paperless" for
processing warranty claims |
Driven by the objectives of providing improved quality products and enhanced customer satisfaction, a
refrigeration major sought Patni's expertise to improve its warranty management process.
The Client
The client is the world's largest
manufacturer of refrigeration,
air conditioning and heating
systems. A global leader in
transport refrigeration and air
conditioning, the client
specializes in the transport
applications of refrigeration
and air conditioning in five
main areas: Container,
Truck/Trailer, Marine, Bus/Rail,
and Replacement Components.
The Challenge
A leader in its domain, the client was constantly exploring options to enhance
its performance by improving existing processes. One of the processes which
needed a major change was the warranty management process. This was
because the existing process was supported by a VAX based legacy system
which lacked scalability for handling transaction load surges. Additional
challenges included:
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Process of routing warranty claims from different geographies through
a web portal was not effective due to inability of the VAX system to
directly capture online data |
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Despite having interfaces with suppliers & the dealers, the system did
not support interaction between the concerned entities. As the mode
of communication was not online, it resulted in a lot of paper work
making the claims settlement process error-prone and time-consuming |
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Maintaining the highly customized legacy system was becoming
difficult. The short supply of skills in this field and the availability of
few people having the technical know-how of the application, added to
the woes |
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The VAX system did not interface with the existing Baan ERP system
which was the enterprise backbone for the client. |
As warranty management had an impact on customer satisfaction, product
quality, and profitability of the company, the company realized that it had to
rethink on its approach to warranty management. With an objective to
improve its warranty management process, the client started looking at
implementing a warranty management solution that could help it improve
customer satisfaction.
The Solution
After a complete study and analysis of existing processes and business requirements, Patni
suggested a separate module as an extension to the existing Baan ERP system. This was
deemed to be a replacement to the existing VAX legacy system. The warranty management
module of Baan offered rich functionality such as warranty registration, claims submission,
claims processing and settlements, returns management, supplier management and parts
replacement.
Patni followed a methodical approach for implementing the solution.
Patni's consultants worked closely with the client's key users, studied the
existing processes and systems, and created the implementation blueprint.
The implementation began with the development of conference room pilot
(CRP). The pilot was used to configure the Baan Warranty module and
demonstrate the functionalities and user interface to the key users.
Subsequent to the success of CRP, Patni completed all the tasks necessary to
bring the system to production.
To ensure smooth transition from the VAX based legacy system to the new
Baan Warranty Management system, Patni provided the key users with the
standard operating procedures (SOP). The design & development of the
entire solution was done in a short span of 18 weeks.
The Technology
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Baan |
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The Benefits
As the new system interfaced with the existing Web portal, it provided
automatic notifications. Other benefits included
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The process was made paperless by eliminating all manual rework.
It also enabled e-mail as the mode of communication between
dealers and managers |
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Warranty improvements boosted revenues, enhanced customer
satisfaction and loyalty, and even helped raise the quality of
products |
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Users could achieve an overall time saving of 60% by using the new
application |
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The new system is easy to maintain while being flexible and
scalable for future upgrades. |
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