We do concede that the RMA process can be costly, particularly if you have a global customer base but a centralized point of manufacturing. It means you\u2019ll have to coordinate returns from your distributors back to your HQ, which is no mean feat. But if you\u2019re going to all the trouble of getting faulty goods back to base, then surely you should aim to get as much value from the process as possible \u2013 while also streamlining it to reduce that cost?<\/p>\n
What value can be gained from bringing faulty goods back and either repairing or replacing them? Well, aside from fulfilling what your customers probably expect of you, there is a great deal of real-world use that those products have been through that can help you improve in the future. While a lot of the reasons for product failures can be traced back to improper usage, the end user isn\u2019t always to blame \u2013 often there is a pattern to be found.<\/p>\n
That pattern is best sought out in its origins. Products that fail due to quality issues will share a history, and in those records will be the root cause of the failure. It could be the combination of a particular component and a specific firmware version, or conversely, there could be a testing issue, where they were all signed off on a single test station, which could mean your limits or tolerances are out.<\/p>\n
By the way, if you\u2019re already managing your testing in WATS, then you\u2019ll have a complete history of that product ready to pair with the return and repair data \u2013 which is pretty handy. Using the Serial Number History feature, you can get instant access to the full history of a product, along with statistics informing about the most frequent historical repair types for the failed test steps.<\/p>\n
Continuous improvement is always a popular subject for manufacturers \u2013 which makes sense. After all, what business wouldn\u2019t want to fix issues in the future and reduce production bottlenecks?<\/p>\n
If continuous improvement is on your radar, have you considered how useful RMA can be? It\u2019s not just even production that can benefit from learning about product failures \u2013 you\u2019ll quickly start making friends in marketing and sales if you can make your product more reliable.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of definitions of \u2018brand\u2019 out there, but many believe that it is the meeting point of what you say you do and what you actually do. If your reputation hinges on the reliability of your goods, then effectively reviewing returns and finding root causes of failures is going to do wonders for your image.<\/p>\n
Clearly you\u2019re not going to be making operational decisions based purely on optics, but they are an important consideration. Whatever the true motivation to make production better in a manufacturing environment, RMA offers a rare goldmine of info that if you don\u2019t try to tap into, you\u2019re missing out on.<\/p>\n