The complexity of cars is increasing at a similar rate to the development share of car components suppliers, which is now at roughly 30 per cent per vehicle – and this trend looks set to rise. For car servicing, this means: fault symptoms are becoming increasingly difficult to recognise and diagnosing faults is hardly possible these days without special equipment and special expertise. The results of this are that service employees need more time for diagnosis and repair and that repair measures do not eliminate the cause of the fault. The consequence: repeated repairs, high warranty costs for car manufacturers and angry customers. Counter measures can be taken, such as uniform company-wide fault coding – a key factor for efficient fault rectification with targeted diagnosis and repair.

Gather, structure and centralise expertise

To fix faults in cars faster and cheaper the first thing to do is gather the existing expertise; specifically, this means:

• Knowledge from the manufacturer's development and production centres about the product itself
• Expertise from service shops regarding fault symptoms, analysis and diagnosis of the underlying cause and how to eliminate it effectively
• Knowledge from individual experienced employees at the manufacturer and/or service shop about faults in specific products

This knowledge can be analysed, structured and centrally integrated – based on uniform company-wide and cross-departmental fault codes. This provides all the relevant information about fault symptoms, the causes of faults and how to rectify the faults in a structured format – for service shops, the manufacturer's research and development department and production facilities. The benefit: when identical problems arise, the existing solution expertise can be used again – the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented each time.

Fault pattern catalogue to network knowledge

Efficient networking of knowledge across products, fault symptoms, the causes of problems and successful repairs requires a common language. This is possible with a central, uniform fault pattern catalogue – it networks all the available information:

• Symptoms that customers or service employees identify
• Test plans for diagnosis; that means to investigate potential causes and to identify the actual cause
• Repairs for the efficient elimination of the cause of the fault; in other words, repair or replace the smallest possible component

Cirquent: minimum expenditure, maximum success

Cirquent helps car manufacturers network relevant information. We integrate the existing processes and IT systems on the basis of a company-wide fault coding system – usually only a few changes are necessary. Our concrete offer for more efficient fault elimination at a glance:

• Process analysis: analyse the current processes and knowledge basis
• Potential analysis: identify quick wins and optimisation potential
• Implementation: prototypical implementation of the quick wins with automated creation of a uniform fault pattern catalogue and cross-manufacturer and service shop networking of the knowledge that is gathered
• Continuous optimisation: definition and planning of further steps to improve the fault elimination process