By Constant Ondo
We are not talking here about the commercial handling of complaints, in the sense of “communication with the customer” as defined in the ISO standards, but about the resolution process that will help avoid future claims.
This process is essential for the performance as well as the image of the company. It is at the heart of the continuous improvement system. And it is all the more important since a complaint is often a sign of a flaw in the quality system.
Identify the problem, find the appropriate solution, to generalize its implementation
Basically, if there is a claim, it is because the customer has noticed a problem that we have missed. Either because we did not identify it as a non-conformity (new problem), or because it recurred when we thought we had solved it (recurring problem resulting from an inadequate or non-applied solution).
So there are 3 steps in the processing of a claim:
- analysis of the problem (root causes)
- choice of the corrective actions to be taken
- continuity of corrective actions over time
Make information accessible and activable at the workstation
The main challenge companies are facing is access to information at the workstation, where the problem may occur. This is because claim analysis reports are usually stored in the quality department’s database. With an additional difficulty in international groups: the language. Reports are usually written in English.
How is the knowledge they contain transmitted to operators? Orally during production quality meetings? Written and displayed on a billboard at the workstation? If we want to effectively address the issue of accessibility, we must admit that even the most experienced operator cannot always have in mind all the problems he may encounter and the solutions to solve them. And that, when an incident occurs, he has little time to find the right cure to apply.
Thanks to an intelligent digital assistant
PICC, our collective intelligence platform, plays the role of assistant. PICC allows you, very simply, to capitalize and use the resolution axes resulting from claim analysis
In its simplest use case, reports stored in the quality database are transferred to PICC. PICC analyzes and processes these documents to organize them into problems and solutions. An organization of knowledge which is, as we explained in a previous article, the most natural search logic to the human mind and the one that leads most quickly to an activable solution.
By installing PICC on his smartphone or tablet, the operator gets the possibility, anytime, to search the knowledge for a problem he encounters. The system displays the validated solution(s) in his native language. Because PICC automatically translates all the documents it processes into more than 50 languages.
This unique modeling, enriched every day, offers many possibilities to improve the claim treatment process using the company’s know-how :
It is possible, for example, to easily create dynamic procedures to guide the operator, step by step, in the resolution of a problem. This guarantees that the chosen solution is correctly implemented.
PICC also allows to automatically identify the common causes of several types of non-conformities and the causal links between the application of a solution and the appearance of a new problem (induced problem). This gives the operator an exhaustive view of the available knowledge, without having to search through several documents. He is automatically alerted of the potential consequences of each of his actions.
Moreover, when all the knowledge from claim analysis is loaded and organized in PICC, our platform can also be used by the quality departments to save time in processing new claims. The knowledge map (KMAP) leads them much more quickly to the root causes and corrective actions already considered/implemented.
Finally, our KMAP enriched with operator feedback and possibly IoT sensor data, reveals unidentified risks and helps implement preventive actions. We will explain in detail how in another article. Keep posted.
Interested but not convinced yet?
As all those who have already adopted PICC, do not hesitate to ask us for a demo!
