The SAS Warranty Analysis solution has allowed Shanghai GM to reduce the warranty analysis cycle time by 70 percent within the first six months and to substantially cut warranty costs - the main objectives for the system, according to Mr. Gao.

In fact, adds Mr. Xinquan Zhang, Shanghai GM's CIO, "We have reduced warranty costs by 34 percent per vehicle."

These significant improvements have allowed the company to get total return on all software and hardware investments within only half a year. After just six months, Shanghai GM has registered 9 million Chinese Yuan (US$1.1 million) warranty costs savings due to shortened cycle time and an additional 9 million Yuan (US$1.1 million) from the early identification of 13 emerging issues.

These are some of the highlights from the article at the SAS site highlighting thier success in Shanghai GM.This article carries some strong testimonials....the business included.

"Using the SAS solution, the average total cycle time to find and solve an issue was shortened from 174 days to 52 days within the first six months of utilization." - Mr. Nanxiang Gao, Warranty Business Representative and Field Performance Engineer, Shanghai GM

Some excerpts

The power of BI
Shanghai GM's engineers are especially pleased with the analytical power of the SAS software. The statistics driver analysis allows engineers to determine whether a warranty claim variation is normal or exceptional, meaning one that requires investigation. The root-cause analysis has become much easier and quicker and provides statistics-based clues that enable engineers to quickly understand what happened and what variables had an influence on the warranty issue.

"Before SWA, we depended on monthly reports to perform root-cause analysis. With SAS Warranty Analysis, we use real-time analysis in any dimension that we want from the data that is updated weekly. This improves our process significantly," comments a user of the SAS solution from the Quality Department.

Around 30 engineers within the Quality Department are using the SAS system every day. Some of the plants also are using the system already. Within a portal-like application, engineers can get early warning information and perform analyses, such as comparisons, trend exposures and control charts. They also can generate various advanced reports, including statistics driver analyses and forecasting. Historic data is also directly available. Using SAS Enterprise Guide, power users have several ways to directly access the warranty data to create customized report and do further analysis. As a result, they no longer have to depend on IT to provide the data and create report for them.

Mr. Zhong Zhong, Senior System Analyst and IT Project Manager, comments: "Shanghai GM understands the power of BI."

Source: 1

Prashanth Rai