Warranty data analysis for service demand forecasting: a case study in household appliances

The prediction of warranty claim is a major interest for the after-sales department of a manufacturing company, since all the goods produced are subjected to a warranty of varying duration. Indeed, the costs that the producer has to pay for the failures occurred during the warranty period are one of the items that contribute to form the goods retail price. This article presents a methodology to predict the number of technical assistance interventions during the warranty period. The study was developed relying the expertise gained by analyzing a product in the household appliances. We carried out a case study to assess the quality of the approach. Starting from field data of technical support for products manufactured in a given year and using a simulation approach, we predicted the number of technical assistance interventions for the products of the following year.