Heading Off Premature Failure

This paper provides detailed features of a new software that can help unearth design and manufacturing issues before they snowball into big warranty problems. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has delivered a closed-loop solution that spans manufacturing and parts traceability to warranty claims and customer satisfaction. The heart of the system is PolyVista's analytics software, which searches for patterns in warranty claims. PolyVista provides a step change from conventional analytics. It does an excellent job applying computer muscle to the analysis of massive amounts of data—as long as the data has been structured first. The company now uses warranty feedback to rank its top vendors, and it encourages its buyers to purchase parts from them. The solution has worked well enough for HP to package it to sell to other discrete manufacturers, while it is not cheap.