Systematic adaption of lean production system principles to after sales service for customer focusing and waste reduction

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Dombrowski
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 277162493

Companies attach importance to customer orientation and, with this, to customer service in order to differentiate themselves from competitors. The pure offer of primary products is becoming increasingly interchangeable and similar in both quality and price. Therefore, companies increasingly offer services in the field of after-sales services in order to achieve a competitive advantage. This is mainly based on the fact that services that complement the primary product are responsible for 75 - 80% of the company profit.It is necessary to secure the profits gained by the after sales-sector. Therefore, a transformation of lean production system principles can be a solution for securing the profits. Analogous to the production sections, successfully implemented principles, methods and tools can help to react flexibly to customer requirements, to place competitive as well as high-qualitative services on the market. Moreover, it is possible to implement transparent processes and to reduce waste in after sales services.Therefore, the objective of this research project is to develop a methodological set of rules. With the help of this set of rules, the after sales service can be focused, analogous to production processes, on waste reduction, customers expectations as well as desires and transparent processes. Companies shall be qualified to implement individual principles and methods so that employees can improve processes and cope with distributed or uncertain customer demands. As guidance the guideline VDI guideline 2870 - Lean production systems can be used that enlists method sheets and tools depending on different principles.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants