5th Annual Conference. The Florida Hotel And Conference Center Orlando, Florida, USA 10th - 12th March 2009

Transcription

1 The International Conference on Warranty Chain Management 5th Annual Conference The Florida Hotel And Conference Center Orlando, Florida, USA 10th - 12th March 2009 Sponsored by:

2 Conference Director s Message Welcome to the Fifth Warranty Chain Management (WCM) Conference. Alison Griffiths The Warranty Chain Management (WCM) Conference is now in its 5 th year of operation and despite the worsening economy and mounting travel restrictions suffered by many companies, over the next two days WCM 2009 offers a packed and varied agenda bringing together over 50 speakers representing 43 companies from many different segments of the warranty industry. In response to your feedback from previous conferences, I have included more panel and roundtable discussions based upon specific topics which you have requested. The tremendous content of WCM 2009 is testament to the continued commitment of warranty professionals to share their lessons learned and best practices in order to help others. I continue to be amazed at the breath and depth of knowledge that our speakers are able to bring to the WCM audience. As many of you know, the first WCM Conference was established in 2005 to address the concern felt by many warranty professionals and business executives that there was no association, organization or meeting forum to support warranty professionals in the emerging industry. Unlike other conferences, this series is dedicated exclusively to warranty-related subjects with the aim of providing a forum for warranty professionals to build their knowledge-base and professional network on an ongoing basis, as well as to encourage organizations that seek to advance the warranty profession. Experience is drawn from multiple industries and disciplines to bring as much richness to the WCM series as possible. This year the WCM Conference 2009 has been awarded Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Course Credit Approval by the Florida State Bar in recognition of the value of the legal presentations and panel discussions offered within the program. At the conclusion of this event and over the previous 4-year period the WCM series of conferences will have presented its audiences with 171 speakers representing 115 companies from across multiple industries and organizations including manufacturing, retail, legal, universities, research institutes, and solution and service providers. Over the past four years the WCM forum has grown significantly with the attendance increasing from 180 in the first year to a peak of 310 in March Unfortunately, this year along with many other conference organizations, we have seen a marked decrease in the number of conference attendees as a direct result of the current economic crisis, as countless companies have implemented travel embargoes in an attempt to reduce expenditure. That said, at this time, it is anticipated that despite the toughest economy for decades WCM 2009 will be attended by approximately 200 people from more than 90 different companies, 50% of which are attending for the first time. This means that WCM continues to be more than three times the size of any other warranty gathering worldwide, both in content and attendance. One reason for this continued success is the WCM s goal to offer high quality content at lowest benchmarked cost as well as help to further the warranty profession. Thus, despite other conferences struggling to bring together sufficient content, numerous papers were rejected for WCM 2009 as they did not offer new material or insight to the warranty arena. In addition, despite cost pressures you will see that WCM 2009 is still committed to providing high quality networking events where attendees can meet and socialize in catered events. This has been accomplished due to the continued support of the WCM sponsors FULCRUM ANALYTICS; SAS; 4CS; POLYVISTA; NEW CUSTOMER SERVICES; AMT WARRANTY and RUMBERGER KIRK & CALDWELL, P.A. whose commitment to this event during such uncertain and challenging times has ensured that WCM 2009 will remain the premier gathering of warranty professionals worldwide. The WCM remains your venue and I encourage you to take advance of the various conference sessions and informal networking opportunities to learn from your peers and also share your own experiences. Enjoy the conference! Best regards, Alison Griffiths WCM Conference Director Page 2

3 Program Time Activity Title 8.30am Workshop Registration Tuesday March am Workshop 1 Deriving Customer Insights Through Text Mining Repair Notes 9.00am Workshop 2 Service Contract Risk Management: Risk Structure Options And Their Visible And Hidden Costs 12.30pm Workshop Registration 1.00pm Workshop 4 Warranty Analytics And Reporting: How Real Is Your Real Warranty Situation? 1.00pm Workshop 5 Warranty Chain Management Benchmarking And Value Assessment 5.00pm 7.00pm - 9:00pm Conference Registration Welcome Reception Cocktails & Hors D oeuvres Networking Event Sponsored by SAS Wednesday March 11 Time Activity Title 7.00am Registration & Breakfast (Sponsored by 4CS) 8.00am Chair s Welcome Address 8.15am Opening Keynote 9.00am General Update On The Warranty Industry Session 1 Update On The Institute Of Warranty Chain Management 10.15am Refreshments, Exhibits & Networking 10.45am Track 1 Warranty Management And Innovation Track 2 Warranty Cost Estimation And Forecasting Track 3 IWCM Warranty 101 Training (Part 1) 12:30pm Lunch (Sponsored by 4CS), Exhibits & Networking 1:30pm Track 4 Warranty Best Practices & Process Improvement Track 5 IWCM Warranty 101 Training (Part 2) 3.15pm Refreshments, Exhibits & Networking 3.45pm Track 7 Warranty Entitlement Track 8 Elements of Analytics, Reducing Cost, Improving Quality/Returns & Increasing Profit Track 9 Implied Warranty Obligations & Partner Relationships 5.30pm - 7:30pm Cocktails & Hors D oeuvres Networking Event Sponsored by Fulcrum Analytics Page 3

4 Program Thursday March 12 Time Activity Title 7.00am Breakfast 8.00am Track 10 Track 11 New Track 9:30am Warranty Cost Reduction, Tools & Processes Warranty Profitability, Accruals & Accounting Warranty Management - Framework For Moving Ahead Refreshments, Exhibits & Networking 10:00am Track 12 Warranty Processes & Warranty, Loyalty & Competitive Advantage Track 13 Extended Warranties Track 14 Warranty Contract Regulation & IWCM Legal Update 12.00pm Lunch, Exhibits & Networking 1.00pm Track 15 Issue Detection & Early Warning Systems Track 16 Innovation Track 17 Warranty Terms, Obligation & Litigation 2.45pm Refreshments, Exhibits & Networking 3.15pm Panel Panel Discussion How Effective Warranty Management Helps An Organization To Realize Cost Savings & Reduce Exposure To Risk 4.15pm Closing Address Notes: Page 4

5 Workshops TUESDAY SCHEDULE 9:00am - 12:00pm WORKSHOP 1: DERIVING CUSTOMER INSIGHTS THROUGH TEXT MINING REPAIR NOTES Sergei Ananyan, CEO, Megaputer Intelligence, Inc. Workshop Overview We will provide a hands-on workshop demonstrating the discovery of valuable customer insights through text mining on repair notes. The workshop presents a real world analysis project based on anonymized data from a large manufacturing company. We illustrate the methodology, typical analysis steps, challenges, and potential pitfalls of a repair notes analysis project. Companies record and store millions of repair records consisting of structured data and free-form text related to servicing warranty claims. The text portion of repair notes represents the richest source of information about product issues, customer expectations, and potential cross-sell opportunities. However, these valuable insights frequently remain undiscovered due to the complexity of the analysis of large volumes of textual data. This workshop demonstrates a live data analysis project carried out by a leading high tech manufacturing company with the help of a popular text and data mining system PolyAnalyst. We take attendees through a complete data analysis process from loading repair notes to a text mining system, preparing the data, deriving key insights, presenting extracted knowledge to decision makers, and to outlining possible ways to capitalize on the obtained insights. We discuss typical applications and benefits of the derived results for different groups of users: executives, sales and marketing managers, and engineers. The workshop highlights the importance of enabling decision makers across the enterprise to use the results of text mining in their work. Attendees learn how text mining can facilitate solving the following tasks: Creating corporate awareness. Valuable insights are automatically derived from large volumes of textual reports and presented in concise and easy to comprehend form to the management. Real-time alerts. One can perform continuous monitoring of incoming data. When a preset condition becomes true, the system sends an alert to people in charge of handling the issue. Discovery of emerging trends. As technologies, consumer preferences and competition are constantly evolving, an early and accurate discovery of emerging trends becomes a new competitive advantage for a company. Targeted cross-sell activities. Text mining on repair notes generates numerous new attributes that can serve as an input to predictive modeling algorithms. This approach helps companies perform market segmentation and derive accurate purchase recommendation rules to be used by call center agents in their cross-sell activities. Learning Points What insights can be derived from repair notes through text mining. How the derived knowledge can help improve business decisions. Methodology, typical analysis steps, challenges, and potential pitfalls of text mining on repair notes. How a large manufacturing company implemented text mining on repair notes to improve their core business processes. How one can integrate a text mining system in the production decision support environment. Page 5

6 Workshops WORKSHOP 2: SERVICE CONTRACT RISK MANAGEMENT: RISK STRUCTURE OPTIONS AND THEIR VISIBLE AND HIDDEN COSTS Paul Swenson, President & Scott Morrison, Executive Vice President, Fulcrum Analytics Workshop Overview We have found that the majority of retailers and OEMs do not fully understand the various risk options available for their service contract programs. We will review all options including carrying the risk on their own balance sheet, use of captive insurance companies, ceded trust structures, reinsurance, various combinations and other options. We will explore the costs/benefits of each, and include a detailed explanation of market rates for various risk structures that utilize an insurance carrier in some form. We will also detail the hidden costs of various underwritten structures that have important impacts on profitability. We will explore important negotiation points to ensure that there is flexibility in the short and long term, how to help make certain that contracts with insurance carriers are developed in a manner that provides fair returns to all parties for the level of risk assumed, and how to use emerging information to mitigate risk in the future. The bottom line is that a full understanding of various risk structures leads to better risk management and large increases in program profitability. We will use case studies to demonstrate these points. Learning Points An overview of service contract risk options. The costs/benefits of each option. Market rates for various risk structures in different sectors. Hidden costs of various risk structures, including underwriting profits, investment income, loss ratio targets, etc. (This is an important discussion, as we have yet to find any company we have met who understand these impacts). Risk structures and regulatory and compliance concerns. How to negotiate with insurance carriers in a way that works for all parties. Using analytics to reduce risk in the future and increase program profitability. 2 or 3 case studies, including a start up service contract program as well as existing programs that benefited from new risk structures. Presenters Paul Swenson In 2006, Mr. Swenson joined Fulcrum as President of the company s Warranty Solutions Division. Mr. Swenson brings over 15 years of hands-on experience in managing and optimizing every aspect of warranty operations including retail, manufacturing, point of sale, aftermarket/renewal, risk and underwriting, and administration. Mr. Swenson joined Fulcrum from Aon Warranty Group, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Aon Innovative Solutions as well as an officer of Virginia Surety including responsibility for the retail, manufacturing, and financial services verticals. Prior to Aon, Mr. Swenson served as Vice President of Warranty Administration for Circuit City Stores from 1993 to 2002, where he developed the company's highly successful warranty business. During his tenure at Circuit City, his leadership resulted in significant increases in the program's profitability through increased warranty penetration, increased average contract value, decreased claims expenses, reduced warranty loss ratios, sophisticated aftermarket and renewal programs, and the successful introduction of new product concepts. Scott Morrison Mr. Morrison is a CRM & Marketing industry leader with over 25 years experience in the fields of customer profit optimization and the optimization of marketing communications. Mr. Morrison has been a member of the executive management teams at each of the following marketing services companies: Fulcrum Analytics (1998 Present), Yankelovich Partners ( ), The Martin Agency ( ), and Devon Direct Marketing & Advertising ( ). His career focus has been on designing innovative data-driven marketing infrastructures, (leveraging leading-edge predictive modeling and customer state management technology) to guide clients to optimize how they acquire, grow and retain highly profitable customers. He also spent the past 15 years, building and optimizing aftermarket marketing operations such as Extended Service programs and Accessory cross sell operations for major retailers and manufacturers. Page 6

7 Workshops TUESDAY SCHEDULE 1:00pm - 4:00pm WORKSHOP 4: WARRANTY ANALYTICS AND REPORTING: HOW REAL IS YOUR REAL WARRANTY SITUATION? Dr. Vadim Kozyrkov, President, Aculocity LLC Workshop Overview Warranty Management has matured over recent years to a much more prominent position within all industries with access to many sophisticated and powerful analytical tools. However, these powerful analytical tools are utilized without proper understanding of the basics of warranty data. In other words, bells and whistles often prevail over the common sense. The workshop will address the shortcomings of commonly accepted measurements and methodologies, such as warranty as a percentage of sales, defects per thousand units, top 10 defects and others. In their place, it will offer indicators that provide better insight into the actual warranty situation and how it has performed over time. The methodologies and measurements utilized by Aculocity, LLC at a number of clients have allowed companies to accurately track their warranty trends and implement programs for substantial warranty cost reductions. Learning Points Shortcomings of commonly accepted performance indicators. Improved measurements for warranty performance. Quantify the impact of increased product quality on warranty costs. Learn how systems can automatically detect emerging issues before they reach the top issue list. Deep dive into sources of higher than normal claims to take corrective action. Presenter Dr Vadim Kozyrkov, President, Aculocity, LLC has been managing and developing applications for automotive industry since 1995, first with General Motors South Africa and then with GVW Group of companies, including Workhorse Custom Chassis, Autocar Truck and Union City Body Company. He has extensive experience in ERP systems, Data Warehousing, Product Configuration and Warranty. His innovative methods of managing automotive warranty resulted in more than 30% reduction in warranty expenditure both at GMSA and Workhorse. Prior to his tenure in Information Technology, Vadim spent 10 years in physics as a Research Fellow for a number of institutions in the former USSR and South Africa as well as lecturing advance physics courses at the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He published over 20 research papers cited in more than 15 countries. Vadim has MSc in Physics and Mathematics, PhD in Physics, Bachelor of Arts and MBA. Page 7

8 Workshops WORKSHOP 5: WARRANTY CHAIN MANAGEMENT BENCHMARKING AND VALUE ASSESSMENT Bill Roberts, Practice Manager; Thomas Roehm, Senior Director-Global Engineering & Supply Chain Practice, and Greg Link, Solutions Architect, SAS Workshop Overview A recent Aberdeen study showed that 83% of executives polled believe that Warranty Chain performance was important to their company s success with more than half stating it is more important than it was two years ago. Each aspect of the warranty chain presents unique opportunities to achieve value. This workshop will focus on the value of applying analytics to various aspects of the warranty chain including early warning, fraud detection, service parts forecasting, service technician optimization and warranty accrual accounting. We will utilize a mixture of process maps, analytic examples and case studies to illustrate what types of analytics can be applied to which areas of the warranty chain, the expected value along with real world examples to support the value statements. There will also be opportunities for interactive dialogue with domain experts on applying analytics to their environments. Learning Points Industry best practices for applying analytics across the warranty chain. How to calculate potential value associated with analytics How to build the corresponding internal business case to invest in analytics. Case studies that support each example. Presenters Thomas Roehm Mr. Roehm has more than 18 years experience working within the manufacturing industry and 24 years in information technology. His primary focus during these years has been in supply chain management. While working with clients in this space, he gained valuable insights into the business and information technology requirements for successful supply chain management. Prior to his work with SAS, he spent 14 years with EDS developing and supporting manufacturing information systems. During this time he spent several years working with the GM Truck Group as an Account and Applications Delivery Manager responsible for the development, implementation, and support of their warranty and quality systems. Prior to joining the GM team he spent several years managing EDS Field Service operations and systems. Mr. Roehm is an adjunct professor in the graduate program at Lawrence Technological University. Greg Link Mr. Link has spent over 25 years working in Quality and Reliability with a focus on continuous improvement through the use of analytical techniques. He has worked as a Reliability Manager for Nortel Networks and a Warranty Manager for Eaton Corporation and helped Florida Power and Light be awarded the Deming Prize from the Japanese Union of Scientist and Engineers by leading their Reliability Management program. Mr. Link has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering. Page 8

9 WEDNESDAY SCHEDULE 8:00am - 10:15am WELCOME INTRODUCTION Alison Griffiths, Conference Director & President, ALG Associates, LLC Ms. Griffiths has 15 years of business and management consultancy experience, having worked in the public and private sector, manufacturing, retail and customer service industries, assessing organizational needs, developing strategies and improvement plans, problem and conflict resolution and staff training. KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF WARRANTY Marc McKenzie, Global Director of Corporate Warranty & Governance, Hewlett Packard The warranty process is a critically important business function. The company has undergone tremendous growth which has not only expanded its product portfolio and global footprint, but also created a critical mass of best practices and operational scale to leverage. Warranty s direct influence on customer satisfaction & loyalty combined with its pervasive, enterprise-wide scope prompted the raising of the warranty chain management process to strategic importance. It is necessary to have a comprehensive end-to-end approach toward the transformation of the warranty management process from product inception and design phases through the end of service life. A company wide governance model focused on ensuring common processes and best practices are leveraged while ensuring that line of sight maintains accountability in key areas. HP views warranty as another aspect of TCE: the customers total set of experiences. The key is to reduce the occurrence of incidents via improved product quality, correct site set up, but to be ready with excellent service delivery at the right level, if and when needed. Attendees will learn the following: * The key dimensions of warranty that represent strategic value * An enterprise-wide model designed to optimize warranty * An appreciation for the importance of product quality and total customer experience in optimizing warranty * Keys to warranty management success GENERAL SESSION 1: AN UPDATE ON THE WARRANTY INDUSTRY UPDATE ON THE WARRANTY INDUSTRY Eric Arnum, Editor, Warranty Week UPDATE ON THE INSTITUTE OF WARRANTY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Glen Griffiths, President, IWCM 10:45am - 12:30pm, Wednesday TRACK 1: WARRANTY MANAGEMENT & INNOVATION Track Chair: Terry Hawkins, Senior Director - Warranty Management Group, Assurant Solutions Mr. Hawkins is Senior Director for Warranty Management with Assurant Solutions, focusing on providing service and support to manufacturers; specifically for their warranty service and support concerns. Previously, he served as General Manager for Warranty Management at General Electric, Consumer & Industrial. At GE he was involved with the extended warranty program at GE for the past 14 years. 1a HOW TO USE AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN TO YOUR ADVANTAGE TO STREAMLINE SERVICE OPERATIONS Ed Staats, Director of Business Intelligence, ServicePower Cutting costs and creating efficiencies while maintaining long-term competitive service operations are front and center issues for companies both small and large in this time of economic downturn. Many companies are looking to evaluate outsourced processes such as software as a service and partially & fully managed services. Companies that are adopting outsourced processes are seeing dramatic improvements in support costs, man-power efficiencies, time to market, service network satisfaction, marketplace differentiation, lowered integration costs, and scalability. Outsourced processes are able to provide one-stop shopping, niche-business knowledge, and greater costs savings due to sharing of common infrastructure and platforms. As a result of the economy, companies have been left with restrained budgets for We will discuss how utilizing more outsourced processes can help achieve budget constraints during challenging times. Key take-aways include: why companies are looking for outsourced capabilities; why some companies have not done it yet, and why now is the time to optimized processes with outsourced capabilities during an economic downturn. Attendees will learn the following: * What outsourced capabilities such as software as a service and managed services are. * What other companies have achieved with outsourced processes. * How to assess your current after-sales service processes for outsourced capabilities. * Why companies have not looked to utilize outsourced capabilities. 1b WARRANTY MANAGEMENT - NEW RULES TO APPLY? Robert Pritchard, Principal, Infosys Technologies, Ltd. The warranty environment is hair-trigger sensitive, requiring rapid responses to movements in the market. An advanced Business Rules Engine at the heart of a next-generation warranty system allows warranty business users complete control over validation parameters, rather than requiring IT staff to amend the systems. Once connected to the most advanced business and operational intelligence outputs, it really comes into its own, allowing users to carry out flexible, accurate and operational implementation of new business strategies in immediate response to ever-changing external factors, and opening up numerous possibilities for improved repair and claims control, and communication with partners and dealers. Participants will learn the following: * How an organization can position itself to quickly change over its warranty coverages in response to moves by competition. Page 9

10 * In the face of increasing cost pressures, how a Warranty department can apply more exacting standards to claims control and handling without increasing headcount or incurring significant IT support costs. * How a cutting-edge warranty system can support pre-validation of claims on a line-by-line item basis so that service technicians can be advised of the best possible repair before they start the job. 1c NEXT GENERATION WARRANTY SYSTEMS James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management Solutions Companies are moving from operational improvement of warranty to strategic warranty management. Integrating warranty feedback into the whole product life cycle and building a profitable warranty business are top of mind. Warranty claims are being analyzed and both products and warranty offerings are being evolved and improved. Yet the front-line systems and operational business processes that support marketing, sales and customer service do not "understand" warranty. Manual claims approvals, pay-and-chase fraud processes and inconsistent sales and marketing approaches undermine the operational effectiveness of warranty strategies. This session will show how major auto distributors are tackling these operational challenges by adopting warranty decision management in their business processes and information systems. The session will also present best practices from companies in insurance and banking. These companies share similar business challenges relevant to warranty such as complex claims approvals and fraud detection. Companies in these industries have benefited by adopting decision management to deliver impressive results. Attendees will learn the following: * How to make warranty systems and processes deliver on your company's warranty strategy. * Why current approaches to warranty systems are inadequate. * How a focus on warranty decisions in operations has generated an ROI for companies implementing warranty solutions. * How a major auto manufacturer took business control of warranty systems. * How other industries with similar challenges deliver even more value by putting decision management to work in day to day operations. TRACK 2: WARRANTY COST ESTIMATION & FORECASTING Track Chair: Larry Maye, CEO/President, Global Reverse Logistics Mr. Maye is a Naval Academy graduate with extensive leadership and operational experience. Accomplished executive-level leader offers over 19 years of successful reverse logistics and service supply chain experience. Currently an active member of the Reverse Logistics Association Advisory Board. Most recently served as Sr. Director, Global Reverse Logistics for Palm. This role included a major focus on cost management, process improvement implementation and successful 3PSP transition. Previous successful reverse logistics and supply chain roles included positions with Motorola, 3Com Asia and USRobitics and the United States Marine Corps. 2a WARRANTY COST MODELING Jamie Riggs, Senior Statistician - Serviceability Engineering, Sun Microsystems Factors including the number of products shipped, product reliability, and warranty term, that are suspected of driving computing system product warranty costs have complex statistical characteristics (distributions, transformations, and factor types) making warranty cost estimations from historical data a consequential challenge. The candidate driving factor statistical characteristics analysis shows that a reasonable choice of an estimating model is a General Linear Mixed Model (GLMM). This model incorporates the fixed and random effects factor behaviors, and the time dependency of the quarter-over-quarter warranty cost variability as repeated measures. The warranty cost estimates of the GLMM are compared with actual warranty costs on a perproduct basis to evaluate the efficacy of the modeling technique. The differences between the estimates and the actuals are independently identically distributed normal random variables, which is an indication of the adequacy of the estimates. Ongoing work includes model construction on an increased product base sample size as well as continuous monitoring of the estimates versus the actual warranty costs. GLMM methods are not commonly applied to warranty cost estimating, and the model accuracy shows this method to be a promising alternative to the essentially descriptive statistics used conventionally to estimate warranty costs. Attendees will learn the following: * How to recognize the statistical characteristics of candidate warranty cost drivers. * How to know if a factor needs "reshaping" (transformation). * How to recognize autocorrelation within factors. * How to categorize factor types for predictive modeling. * What type of predictive model is appropriate considering the factor statistical characteristics. 2b MODELING SERVICE LOGISTICS TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP Larry Maye, CEO/President, Global Reverse Logistics Effectively creating a cost model enables companies to accurately estimate expected costs of reverse logistics operations and warranty management. At the same time, allowing companies to provide estimated revenue impact of designated improvements when coupled with process improvements. Recently completed work with an industry leader in asset recovery and disposition provided concrete actions and plans derived from modeling. Attendees will learn the following: * Benefits of warranty modeling as a way to identify opportunities for improvement. * Highlight key cost impact areas which are addressable as long term and immediate improvement areas. * Benefits of multi-partner service networks to enable Best-In-Class process improvements. * Using Warranty Modeling can improve corporate bottom line. * Multi-Vendor networks can also service to lower TCO. * Technology improvements can yield significant process improvements which can translate to significant cost savings. * Business case development in the service network should target C-Level of the organization and not operations. 2c WARRANTY SPEND FORECASTING FOR FAILURES INFLUENCED BY CALENDAR MONTH SEASONALITY Dr. Bharatendra Rai, Professor of Business Studies, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth In automobile companies strategic, tactical, and operational level decisions involving warranty cost very often use warranty spending forecasts that are developed using statistical methods. Sometimes failure modes leading to warranty claims are influenced by seasonality that need to be addressed while developing warranty spend forecasting models. This presentation will discuss one such warranty forecasting model which recently won 'Powertrain Innovation Technology Award' at Ford Motor Page 10

11 Company. This case study uses automobile warranty data to illustrate development of such a model using seven key variables. The model can be easily customized for products other than automobile that are sold with warranty and the claims are influenced by seasonality. From this case study attendees will learn the following: * Implications of strategic, tactical, and operational decisions on warranty cost. * How to develop baseline warranty forecasts from failure rates and sales-ramp-up. * How to improve the accuracy of the forecasting model using seasonality effect. * Challenges and benefits of using the warranty data. * Comparison with other methods that are used for warranty forecasting. TRACK 3: IWCM WARRANTY 101 TRAINING Part 1: PREVIEW OF IWCM s W101 WARRANY FUNDAMENTALS COURSE Robert Mueller, RHM Associates William Eliason, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Paul E. Wojcicki, Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, Ltd. Jimmy Griffith, Assurant Solutions This is the first of two conference tracks that will provide a preview of the Institute of Warranty Chain Management (IWCM) W101 Warranty Fundamentals course now nearing completion by one of the IWCM training development working groups. The W101 is designed to be 2-day introductory course for anyone new to the warranty profession and is also a required course for those seeking CWCMP certification. During both sessions actual course content will be presented. The aim of this preview is to give the attendees both an in-depth understanding W101 structure and content, as well to provide an opportunity to give feedback to the working group developing the material. This feedback will then be used to polish up the course content prior to the first formal course offering planned for later in Attendees of this track will: * Learn about overall IWCM training development. * Learn in detail the W101 Warranty Fundamental s Course syllabus. * Go through the Warranty Finance section of the course. * Have the opportunity to give feedback on both the structure and content of the course and on the Warranty Finance section. 1:30pm - 3:15pm, Wednesday TRACK 4: WARRANTY BEST PRACTICES & PROCESS IMPROVEMENT Track Chair: John Hagen, Global Quality Leader, Trane Commercial Systems Part 1: MEASURING AND IMPROVING AN EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT WARRANTY PROCESS John Hagen, Global Quality Leader, Trane Commercial Systems Part 2: HARNESSING AND COORDINATING WARRANTY BEST PRACTICES IN A GLOBAL DIVERSIFIED ENTERPRISE Terry Adams, Director - Technical Services & Reliability, Ingersoll Rand Part 3: PANEL DISCUSSION INCLUDING: John Hagen, Global Quality Leader, Trane Commercial Systems Terry Adams, Director - Technical Services & Reliability, Ingersoll Rand Robert Potts, Vice President - Sales, PolyVista Kjell Hammarstrom, Senior Warranty Cost Program Manager, Sun Microsystems James Johnson, Automotive Marketing Sales & Service Lead, IBM Joshua Becker, Manager of Reliability, Sub-Zero Freezer Company David Froning, Product Manager for Warranty Solutions, SAS The presentation will include a case study of the approach used at Trane Commercial Systems to improve the warranty process as a critical part of a larger Quality Management initiative. Key areas of focus will include evaluation and prioritization of warranty process improvement, reserves management, organization structure, system enhancements, policy and procedure, transforming data into information, and gaining management support. The presentation highlights lessons learned during a 3 year improvement process and recent acquisition by Ingersoll Rand. Ingersoll Rand began a journey 2 years ago to create a global business operating system which harnesses the best practices and successes across its entire diversified sectors: Climate Control Technologies, Industrial Technologies, Security Technologies & Trane. * The presentation will provide a case study on the following; * Creation of a cross sector warranty council and Enterprise Focus Area * Defining a strategy around process, technology and quality culture * Construction and deployment of a global maturity based evaluation tool to drive coordinated improvement action plans. TRACK 5: IWCM WARRANTY 101 TRAINING Part 2: PREVIEW OF IWCM s W101 WARRANY FUNDAMENTALS COURSE Robert Mueller, RHM Associates William Eliason, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Paul E. Wojcicki, Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, Ltd. Jimmy Griffith, Assurant Solutions This is the second of two conference tracks that will provide a preview of the Institute of Warranty Chain Management (IWCM) W101 Warranty Fundamentals course now nearing completion by one of the IWCM training development working groups. The W101 is designed to be 2-day introductory course for anyone new to the warranty profession and is also a required course for those seeking CWCMP certification. During both sessions actual course content will be presented. The aim of this preview is to give the attendees both an in-depth understanding W101 structure and content, as well to provide an opportunity to give feedback to the working group developing the material. This feedback will then be used to polish up the course content prior to the first formal course offering planned for later in Attendees of this track will: Page 11

12 * Go through the Warranty and the Law section of the course. * Go through the Extended Warranties section of the course. * Have the opportunity to give feedback on the sections covered. 3:45pm - 5:30pm, Wednesday TRACK 7: WARRANTY ENTITLEMENT Track Chair: Greg Spraker, National Accounts Manager, SAS Mr. Spraker has over 15 years of experience in reliability engineering and warranty management in telecommunications, aerospace, industrial controls and medical devices. He consults with corporations that are seeking to build and optimize their service intelligence centers. He is a Certified Reliability Engineer and holds bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering. Part 1: TAKING THE QUESTION OUT OF QUESTIONABLE CLAIMS Jeff Moore, Claims Manager, General Electric, and Greg Spraker, National Accounts Manager, SAS Manufacturers overpay an estimated $2 billion on questionable warranty claims each year equaling between 6-8% of their warranty costs. This behavior is driven by technical training issues, unintentional claim mis-codings, or flat out fraud. The biggest challenge overcoming these issues is knowledge. Knowing in a timely manner when, who, and how to question regarding these suspect behaviors. Manual "random" audits are time-consuming and penalize both the suspect and reputable service providers. Rules based adjudication systems do a great job of automatically catching the obvious, but lack an ability to find issues outside these pre-defined rules. And besides, unscrupulous service providers will quickly learn how to beat these systems. Some leading manufacturers are beginning to gain ground on this issue by applying sophisticated analytics to surface out the questionable claims and alert manufacturers to suspect service provider behavior. This session will highlight key best practices to identify questionable claims. Erroneous claim payments are avoidable costs and if identified can significantly impact a company s profit margin. Through a business-focused discussion of real-world case studies, attendees will learn how manufacturers are reducing their warranty costs by applying new and innovative techniques to automatically identify and act on questionable claims. Part 2: PANEL DISCUSSION INCLUDING: Jeff Moore, Claims Manager, General Electric Greg Spraker, National Accounts Manager, SAS Kevin Krakora, Director - Customer Service/Warranty, Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America Terry Hawkins, Senior Director - Warranty Management Group, Assurant Solutions Douglas Maddox, Manager - Warranty Analysis Systems, Chrysler LLC TRACK 8: ELEMENTS OF ANALYTICS, REDUCING COST, IMPROVING QUALITY/RETURNS & INCREASING PROFIT Track Chair: David Froning, Product Manager for Warranty Solutions, SAS Mr. Froning is the Product Manager for Warranty Solutions at SAS. He works in partnership with manufacturers, suppliers, and industry organizations to develop solutions for manufacturing industry issues such as early warning, accelerated problem solving, and accrual forecasting. Through participation in industry groups and independent research, Mr. Froning works with manufacturing companies to develop best practices for technology applications. His experience also includes work with leading automotive market research firms. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University and a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 8a INVESTING IN ANALYTICAL SOFTWARE TO UNDERSTAND WARRANTY FAILURES Bill Macher, Manager - Global Reliability Engineering & Warranty Administration, Emerson Climate Technologies The current business climate has forced our organization to create several internal Limited Liability Companies. With this restructuring it has created many challenges with reporting annual warranty rates as well as failure mode analysis within each of our divisions. Internal warranty data is separated according to the individual business units with a requirement for separate reporting functions. It became obvious that a warranty database overhaul would be necessary to fulfill this demand. A more elegant and simpler solution was discovered utilizing an off-the-shelf analytical software tool that was customized for our needs. This new software package also brought several more positive attributes such as text mining, warranty early prediction capability and in process data manipulation. Attendees will learn the following: * Techniques that Emerson Climate Technologies use to understand warranty early warning predictions. * Potential impact on the Bottom Line. * How accessing in-process manufacturing data improved our failure mode analysis. * How the ability to mine text improved our failure mode analysis. * Next steps to gain even more information from the warranty data. 8b USING REPAIR DATA TO DISCOVER CROSS-SELL OPPORTUNITIES Sergei Ananyan, CEO, Megaputer Intelligence Customers of large companies are frequently unaware of extra products and services offered in relation to products they are using. A considerable portion of customers would purchase these extra products if they knew about them. We will demonstrate how an innovative high-tech company analyzes repair data to identify promising cross-sell opportunities and provide accurate purchase recommendations to customers encountering various technical problems. The goal is to identify extra products of interest, unique for each case, and enable support agents to offer these products to the customer. This requires joint application of data and text mining techniques on repair data. Text mining facilitates extracting key structured attributes that characterize individual repair notes. New attributes are combined with other structured attributes for training on historical data to discover valid association rules. These rules provide customers with timely advice on the availability and features of extra products, thus enhancing customer satisfaction and generating extra sales. Attendees will learn the following: * What extra value is hidden in warranty data: cross-sell analysis. * How text mining tools extract key characteristics of repair notes. * Discovering association rules based on structured data and text. * How to set up an automated cross-sell recommendation system. * How a high-tech company improved its bottom line by analyzing repair notes. Page 12

13 8c WARRANTY DATA ANALYTICS Bobbi McFadden, Quality Manager, Continental Automotive Systems, and Keith Thompson, Dir. Of Software, Ubiquiti The appropriate use of analytics help identify root causes, resolve no trouble found issues, and provide means to obtain early warning of problems. Based on case study data and our experience, we exemplify several important techniques using warranty information. Our findings go beyond the boundaries of our own organizations, and include interactions with our business partners. Our approaches generalize to help address similar issues more widely, and we explain how this may be done. Also as is discussed, our techniques have helped in improved quality as well as significant direct cost savings. Attendees will learn the following: * Root cause analysis techniques in warranty. * Resolving no trouble found warranty issues. * Improving quality using warranty data. * Data analytics to save warranty costs. TRACK 9: IMPLIED WARRANTY OBLIGATIONS & PARTNER RELATIONSHIPS Track Chair: Brian Casey, Partner, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, LLP Mr. Casey is a partner in the Corporate and Regulatory Insurance Practice Group of the Atlanta office of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP. Mr. Casey focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions and the multi-state regulation of insurance companies, insurance agencies, third party administrators, and other financial services firms. He also represents insurance clients in the areas of privacy, reinsurance, corporate finance and venture capital, and e-commerce. Mr. Casey speaks nationally on a regular basis. Areas of focus include Gramm-Leach Bliley Act, Telemarketing and the Do-Not-Call regulations, the CANSPAM Act of 2003, Fair Credit Reporting Act, HIPAA privacy regulations and electronic commerce, with a particular emphasis on electronic signatures and records. He also speaks on various regulatory matters and trends affecting the insurance industry. 9a INVISIBLE TERMS AND CREATIVE SILENCE IN B2B WARRANTIES Helena Haapio, International Contract Counsel, Lexpert Ltd. Getting warranty terms wrong can be expensive, especially in international trade. If a company has been engaged in domestic dealings and starts selling or purchasing internationally, its basic assumptions as to language, abbreviations (such as FOB and CIF), notices, time limits, etc., may require rethinking. More attention needs to be paid to choices of words or lack of words, silence: missing language, tacit assumptions, self-evident omitted items, and invisible terms. If something goes wrong and the contract is silent, gap-filling laws and implied terms come into play. The law may actually write your warranty for you. This may be good news or bad news. You (or your contracting partner) may use silence creatively but do you really want this to happen? Probably not, if you want to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings, claims, and disputes and promote successful business relationships. Using a Quick Quiz and examples, this interactive presentation will demonstrate how silence and invisible terms in cross-border dealings can help you or hurt you. It will illustrate real-life problems frequently encountered in global supply chains and how these problems can be overcome. Attendees will learn the following: * Why basic legal literacy is increasingly important for warranty professionals involved in international dealings. * How simple choices of words can be used to prevent problems. * Five key questions to ask when agreeing about (or passing on) warranty terms. 9b PITFALLS IN EXECUTING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MEASURES: NON-COMPLIANCE WITH EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTY OBLIGATIONS Ronald Akasaka, Attorney, and Michael Halvorsen, Attorney, Ruben & Sjolander The presentation explores the creation of express and implied warranties, the dangers of not understanding warranty obligations, and consequences of failing to comply with warranty obligations. The presentation includes an overview of the general requirements necessary to create an express warranty, the availability of disclaimers, and consequences of failing to comply with the terms of an express warranty. The presentation also addresses the creation of an implied warranty, the potential to disclaim an implied warranty under, and the general standards for establishing a violation of an implied warranty. Attendees will learn the following: * How to utilize an express warranty to provide maximum protection for your company. * How to disclaim an implied warranty. * The differences between the types of implied warranties that could arise from the sale of your product. * How to better understand the aspects of the express warranty protections offered by your company. 9c ANATOMY OF AN EXTENDED WARRANTY/SERVICE CONTRACT PROVIDER S INSURANCE PARTNER RELATIONSHIP Guy Koenig, SVP - Reinsurance Business Development, and Brian Casey, Partner, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, LLP This presentation consists of both (1) business and (2) legal and regulatory aspects of the business relationship between extended warranty/service contract providers and/or administrators and their insurance company partner, including key business, financial, actuarial and operational requirements of the insurer, the primary contractual agreements (and key points of negotiations with respect thereto) and legal and regulatory compliance matters associated with the insurance component of the extended warranty/ service contract business. The presenters represent a major insurer that provides contractual liability, reinsurance and other insurance solutions to the extended warranty/service contract industry. Attendees will learn the following: * Initial Program Review Key components necessary to analyze a new program, including review of administrator s business history (industry reputation, previous insurers, current financials, organizational charts and key staff biographies), program terms and conditions, marketing materials, claims and loss data, and program pricing. * Key Agreements/Contracts Contractual Liability Reimbursement Insurance Policy (CLIP), General Services Agreement, General Agency Service Agreement, Administrative Trusts, Loss Reserve Trusts, Reinsurance Agreements (XOL-excess of loss and QS-quota share), and Retrocession Reinsurance Agreements. * Structure of Risk Transfer / Alignment of Parties Interests Aggregate deductibles, Offshore captives, Risk Retention Groups, sliding scale commissions. * Compliance and Risk Mitigants strong internal compliance functions, monitoring of regulatory changes, in-house attorneys and risk managers, outside counsel, industry conferences and media (e.g., Warranty Weekly). * Program Monitoring and Audits monthly reporting, measuring fluctuations of key performance metrics (premiums, revenues, frequency, severity) within a range of predefined values, annual/semiannual claims and underwriting reviews, regular program review meetings, and annual actuarial reviews. 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14 THURSDAY SCHEDULE 8:00am - 9:30am TRACK 10: WARRANTY COST REDUCTION, TOOLS AND PROCESSES Track Chair: Kjell Hammarstrom, Senior Warranty Cost Program Manager, Sun Microsystems Mr. Hammarstrom is responsible for the world wide warranty cost estimates for new products at Sun Microsystems and engaged in all Sun s products Service Costs through the entire product life cycle. During his 13 years at Sun he has held different management roles in Services Logistics, Business Support and Global Processes. Kjell has 25 years experience as Logistics Manager in the IT Support business at various IT companies and steel industry. He is also a member of IWCM s Board of Directors. 10a DESIGNING PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENTS TO IDENTIFY AND REDUCE WARRANTY WASTE Douglas Maddox, Manager - Warranty Analysis Systems, Chrysler LLC The origins of warranty costs include product design, manufacturing defects, supplier quality, and ineffective corrective actions performed by authorized repair facilities. Historically investment in analysis and control tools has been focused on the most controllable areas which generally don t include the repair facilities. A lack of effective tools has left those responsible for controlling repair facility warranty waste ill-equipped to identify the greatest areas of opportunity. With resource reductions a regular occurrence in many industries today a system which identifies high waste outliers is a must have. This module will discuss the challenges and payoffs of designing a system used to compare repair facilities, in this case dealerships, while isolating external influences such as product mix, repair complexity, labor cost, parts cost, climate, and terrain. Attendees will learn the following: * The value of identifying warranty waste as a unique facet of warranty cost. * Challenges presented when designing a tool to identify waste created by repair facilities. * Evolution of the analytical tool designed by Chrysler LLC * Importance of building complexity into the background of an analysis tool so the output can remain simple to understand. * How to address anomalies so they don t damage the credibility of the tool. 10b LOOKING UPSTREAM: WARRANTY COST SAVINGS Kjell Hammarstrom, Senior Warranty Cost Program Manager, Sun Microsystems Warranty Chain Management is an end to end view where sourcing from suppliers is an important phase of the Warranty Cost reduction. Where Companies Suppliers offer Warranty on their products, the sourcing Company need to compare the separable cost of buying products with Warranty with the alternative cost not to buy products with Warranty from the Supplier. The cost of buying products without Warranty can be estimated with knowledge about failure rate data and repair costs. The figures should be compared and used for vendor selections, Warranty Strategy, negotiations and budget processes. The review and the result impact often more than one organization and need to be a cross functional effort. Sun Microsystems rolled out tools and training to Product Lines and reduced Warranty Costs. Attendees will learn the following: * Useful data for a Vendor Warranty cost review. * Tools to compare costs. * Cross functional impacts. 10c DESIGN FOR CUSTOMER SELF-SERVICE WARRANTY James Johnson, Automotive Marketing Sales & Service Lead, IBM Designing products for warranty is a fundamental initiative that a manufacturer should undertake to reduce warranty liability. Central behind this is reduction of product defects through any number of quality programs. For manufacturers that provide only part replacement warranties this may suffice. However, for manufacturers whose warranties include warranty service, these initiatives should extend to simplifying and reducing the cost of their service. This should start with understanding the nature of their customer problems, what causes them, and how they are resolved. This will lead manufacturers to focus on process improvements for their service delivery. What about pursuing the alternative of customer self service? In this presentation the audience will be provided with an overview on how to design products for customer self service warranty; starting with establishing the business opportunity for a product, then proceeding with examples of product design criteria along with the tasks that should be followed to release a product to the marketplace. Finally, a methodology will be provided for estimating and measuring self service benefits. This presentation will take concepts that have evolved over several product generations and break them down into a set of actions that others can use. Attendees will learn the following: * What is customer self service. * How to recognize the opportunity for customer self service for their products. * How to establish product design criteria to enable customer self service. * What other tasks need to be considered before going to market. * How to estimate and measure self service benefits. TRACK 11: WARRANTY PROFITABILITY, ACCRUALS AND ACCOUNTING Track Chair: Christopher Karo, Counsel, Frost Brown Todd, LLC Mr. Karo is of Counsel to the Lexington, Kentucky office of Frost Brown Todd LLC, and a member of the firm s Insurance Regulation Practice Group. He focuses his practice on insurance regulatory and corporate matters for insurers, insurance agencies, third party administrators, and service contract providers before regulatory agencies in all 50 states. As a former attorney with the Florida Department of Insurance, Mr. Karo brings a broad legal and regulatory perspective to the challenges faced by the insurance industry. He has provided advice to a number of national and multi-national manufacturers, retailers, and administrators with respect to compliance matters involving extended warranty programs. Mr. Karo received his J.D. degree from the Florida State University College of Law in 1996 and is a member of the Kentucky and Florida Bars. Page 14

15 11a WARRANTY PROFITABILITY - AN ACTUARIAL APPROACH Douglas Nishimura, ARM, and Michael Paczolt, ACAS, Milliman Warranties have historically been sold to maximize top line revenue with little focus on bottom line results. Utilizing a blend of statistics, mathematics and finance, actuaries can estimate warranty costs, accruals and liability patterns. By collecting the appropriate data, we can determine which products are failing and at what times, allowing the optimal design of a warranty program. We will give a brief synopsis of actuarial methodologies and explain why they are best suited to project costs. Using actual clients data, we will show how to identify potential pitfalls in warranty estimates such as claim trends, adverse selection and consumer behavior. We will also describe alternatives to the traditional insurance market. Alternative risk financing can provide additional savings and claim reduction incentives. The actuarial perspective provides management with unique information to enhance the bottom line results of their warranty program. Attendees will learn the following: * How an actuary can add value to a warranty program * How to estimate warranty costs from an actuarial perspective * What data to collect for proper analysis * What factors specifically affect warranty costs * Cost savings from alternative risk financing (self-insurance, captives, etc...) 11b WARRANTY ACCRUAL AND ACCRUAL MANAGEMENT William Eliason, Global Warranty Finance Manager, Sun Microsystems With the growing focus on the global economy s health, companies in turn are also closely evaluating their own profitability. One area for potential improvement of product margins is warranty, which is considered as part of the product s cost of goods sold. Valuable points of profitability margin can be lost if the product s true warranty service cost is not actually known or not accurately accounted for. In addition, over or under accruing for a company s warranty liability can also result in misleading financial reporting to internal and external sources highly dependent on the accuracy of this information. Past historical processes for determining warranty reserve allocations could be characterized as the CFO s best guess as a percentage of product sales. It has been difficult to generate an accurate, predictive picture of warranty performance, so it has been equally difficult to know how much financial reserve will be required to satisfy warranty claims. The upside is that improved practices now exist enabling better forecasting and evaluation of warranty costs. Existing operational data from within the organization can be leveraged to produce significantly more accurate results in setting and maintaining accurate warranty accrual rates. With better accuracy in forecasting accrual rates, companies can be assured that profitability margins, or worst yet sales, won t be lost to overstated warranty costs. Attendees will learn how to: * Quantify the impact of inaccurate warranty forecasting on profitability. * Optimize warranty accruals to ensure accurate financial reporting. * Understanding of the cost impact of different warranty terms and durations. * Develop accurate methods for estimating and tracking warranty liability. 11c UNDERSTANDING TAX RULES & ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES APPLICABLE TO WARRANTY & SERVICE CONTRACTS Christopher Karo, Counsel, Frost Brown Todd, LLC Businesses that offer warranty or service contracts on the products they manufacture or sell must be aware of state, federal and local tax rules and accounting requirements that affect their ability to manage risks in both a cost-efficient and legal manner. This presentation will provide a basic overview of state, federal and local tax statutes and regulations applicable to the sale of warranty and service contracts, as well as a discussion of case law, administrative rulings, NAIC SAP rules and FASB technical bulletins that impact a company s tax reporting and payment and internal accounting decisions with respect to the management of warranty and service contracts. The presentation will also address how the company may be taxed on the income from sales of warranty and service contracts as well as the application of taxes, such as excise and sales taxes, on the sale of the warranty and service contracts. Attendees will learn the following: * The manner in which state and municipal governments apply tax laws to the sale of warranty and service contracts. * Federal tax law applicable to the sale of warranty and service contracts. Included in the discussion will be an analysis of a recent IRS Technical Advice Memorandum (TAM ) which outlines which warranty contracts will be characterized as insurance for federal income tax purposes. * How federal, state and local laws may differ in the characterization of warranty and service contracts as insurance contracts for tax purposes. * GAAP and SAP accounting standards and principles applicable to the recognition of warranty and service contract revenues and costs as well as the application of reserve requirements. * NEW TRACK: WARRANTY MANAGEMENT - FRAMEWORK FOR MOVING AHEAD Track Chair: Robert Potts, Vice President - Sales, PolyVista, Inc. Mr. Potts joined PolyVista, Inc. in 2003 and was appointed vice president responsible for sales shortly after. He has extensive experience managing sales teams in start-up technology companies. He has worked with his colleagues at PolyVista to develop new markets for PolyVista s out-of-the-box solution that now include high-tech and traditional manufacturing; insurance; petroleum; commodity and futures trading; hospital and healthcare systems; medical research; law enforcement and security; fleet management, and commercial aviation. Before PolyVista, Mr. Potts had been in various field sales and sales management roles with four star-ups; of which, three became public companies. He began his involvement in the Business Intelligence (BI) market as an early employee of the company that helped coin the term OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) in Presenters: Brent Brownfield, Warranty Services, EDS Robert Potts, Vice President - Sales, PolyVista, Inc. Page 15

16 Today s economic climate forces companies to search for ways to cut costs by addressing problems that have, for too long, been ignored or, at best, tinkered with around the edges. Companies have invested significant dollars to improve the processing of warranty claims but haven t exploited the value from their warranty chain management infrastructure. This session brings together experts from EDS an HP company, and PolyVista to discuss how companies address their need to cut costs, maintain and improve customer satisfaction and market share, and reduce warranty spend. EDS will bring its considerable experience in advising companies on how to evaluate the areas of their warranty supply chain that need improvement and present a roadmap on how to impact those areas. Real-life examples will be shared to illustrate how companies implemented warranty chain management solutions leading to improved product quality and consumer satisfaction. Case Studies will show how costs were cut, manufacturing defects contained, and companies moved from being reactive to proactive. Attendees will learn: * How key areas of their Warranty Chain Management environment map to an overall framework. * How to judge the relative importance of each area. * How to realize quick hits and long term results. * How to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of quality and reliability experts. * How to involve upper management and colleagues in the process of change. * Gain insight through a detailed discussion on three of the key areas. Attendees will take away a roadmap that guides companies on how to look at and improve their Warranty Chain Management environment, which they can take back to their company to guide the actions they take to facilitate effective change. THURSDAY SCHEDULE - 10:00am - 12:00pm TRACK 12: WARRANTY PROCESSES AND WARRANTY, LOYALTY & COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Track Chair: John King, Delphi Corporation 12a DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING A WEB-BASED WARRANTY SYSTEM Frank Kozlowski, Warranty Specialist, Kohler This presentation will provide attendees who may be interested in implementing a new warranty processing system with the insight on how to design and implement a web-based system. The perspective utilized within this presentation is from the primary user, and not from a software company. The case study for this presentation is based on the new a web-based Warranty System built by Snap-On Business Solutions for the Kohler Co Engine Business; a manufacturer of gasoline and diesel engines headquartered in Kohler, Wisconsin. Worldwide, the Engine Business serves its customers with spare parts, engine repair and warranty service by over 12,000 service dealers. For years, warranty administration was processed using an IBM System 34, and later utilizing an IBM AS/400. Recognizing the need for improving communication the division began the replacement project late This project was successful in going live September Attendees will learn the following: * How to develop a plan in making the right Decision. * How to set a goal and build a system to achieve that goal. * Learn about the numerous Project Phases that are required. * Learn from practical experiences about the many Challenges that were encountered. * Obtain practical recommendations. 12b EARLY WARRANTY INVOLVEMENT IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS PROCESSES: SUCCESSFUL QUOTES, AGREEMENTS AND TERMS John King, Quality/Reliability Sciences, Delphi Corporation This presentation focuses on the importance of the early involvement of warranty engineering prior to and during product launch. A warranty engineer s input can be critical to the profitability and the overall success of a product development project. Key early inputs include: expected product failure rates, past warranty cost history, servicing and replacement strategies, and logistics considerations. Special attention is paid to proposing and developing warranty agreements and terms based on the specific customer, geographical area, product type, and the planned or proposed warranty chain structure. Also discussed will be the automotive suppliers challenge of managing warranty across a variety of customers, products, and geographical regions. Attendees will learn the following: * The importance of warranty engineers involvement in the early stages of the product design beginning with the business quoting phase and continuing through the product development phases. * Key information that a warranty engineer needs to provide to a business manager to contribute to the overall success of the project. * Key aspects of a competitive business quote and a successful warranty agreement. * Uses of warranty agreements and terms developed within the warranty chain (Tier 1 to OEM and Tier 1 to Tier 2). * Important considerations when doing business across a diverse customer base which is relevant across multiple industries. 12c DRIVING CUSTOMER LOYALTY IN A DISAGGREGATED SERVICE INDUSTRY Steve Zannos, Senior Director - Service Operations, NEW Customer Service Companies, Inc. Customers demand top quality products and excellent customer service. As third party service providers manage the ownership experience, many companies have lost visibility of their customers service experiences. Despite the disaggregated service environment, companies must drive customer loyalty by engaging in their customers service experiences. This presentation will share tools, techniques and strategies to help you achieve customer satisfaction and drive customer loyalty. Attendees will learn: * The importance of having visibility into the customers service experiences. * The key steps in the service process to monitor. * The tools your service partners need to exceed customer expectations. * The value of owning the customer experience throughout the product s life. * How to take a holistic approach to your customers ownership experiences. Page 16

17 12d DRIVING HARMONIZATION AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH WARRANTY SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION Kevin Hogan, Senior Manager - Supply Chain & Service Management, Accenture The presentation will focus on practical strategies & tactics that support driving process and policy harmonization and increase competitive advantage when implementing new warranty management capabilities in a global company with multiple product lines and brands. The session is based on a recent SAP Warranty implementation project for a large global OEM and presented by senior project managers from both Accenture and the OEM; the information provided is based on hands-on experience and lessons learned during a complex project with demanding deadlines and multiple stakeholders. Attendees will learn the following: * How to drive harmonization of processes and policies across brands. * How improve competitive advantage through new systems capabilities. * Benefits from implementing an ERP-based warranty system. * How to manage change among multiple groups of stakeholders. * Critical success factors, challenges and real-life lessons learned from planning and managing a complex warranty systems implementation. TRACK 13: EXTENDED WARRANTIES Track Chair: Paul Swenson, President, Fulcrum Analytics In 2006, Mr. Swenson joined Fulcrum as President of the company s Warranty Solutions Division. Mr. Swenson brings over 15 years of hands-on experience in managing and optimizing every aspect of warranty operations including retail, manufacturing, point of sale, aftermarket/renewal, risk and underwriting, and administration. Mr. Swenson joined Fulcrum from Aon Warranty Group, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Aon Innovative Solutions as well as an officer of Virginia Surety including responsibility for the retail, manufacturing, and financial services verticals. 13a CLAIMS COST CONTROLS FOR EXTENDED WARRANTIES Terry Hawkins, Senior Director - Warranty Management Group, Assurant Solutions In order to provide a competitive extended warranty program, it is essential to maintain control over claims costs. This includes maximizing the use of technology in dispatch and call management, monitoring service provider billing for irregularities, and avoiding product exchanges whenever possible. The information provided in this presentation was derived from a multi-year effort to reduce claims costs and the elimination of waste. Mr. Hawkins will provide data to illustrate various initiatives in reducing extended warranty program expenses. Attendees will learn: * How to achieve shorter cycle times with electronic dispatching. * Providing technical support to service providers. * Avoiding product exchanges by securing difficult to obtain parts. * Low cost solutions for product replacements. * Identifying and eliminating inappropriate charges for service, parts, or mileage. 13b SERVICE CONTRACT PROGRAMS: TOP 5 STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE PROFITS Paul Swenson, President, and Scott Morrison, Executive Vice President, Fulcrum Analytics We will share the top 5 areas of opportunity that we have consistently found in every service contract program in which we have become involved. These areas of opportunity include cost savings, risk management and loss cost analytics, analytic-driven marketing spend decisions, program changes/enhancements, and game changers such as totally new programs driven from the service contract database. Case studies from a major manufacturer and major retailer ESP program will be utilized to demonstrate each of the five areas. Attendees will learn: * How to evaluate and prioritize top service contract optimization opportunities * How to calculate true ESP program profitability * Impacts of service contract decisions on customer loyalty * How to use service contract programs to generate a connected series of customer communications that generate ongoing value to the customer, generate totally new profit streams, and drive more product sales. 13c UNDERSTANDING THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR EXTENDED WARRANTY PROGRAM Michael Yates, Vice President - Risk Management & Underwriting, Assurant Solutions This presentation will give attendees the basics of how an obligor company analyzes ESC business, identifies adverse trends, and develops solutions when programs are not performing in-line with expectations. Challenges that have impacted ESC program performance historically in the consumer electronics and appliance industries will be cited, such as examples of new technology and consumer usage. Although this would not be new information to other insurance carriers, it may be valuable to manufacturers who self-insure, in order to for them to validate that appropriate analytical processes are in place. It also may be interesting to distributors/retailers/brokers/administrators who want to gain a better understanding of what drives the back-end ESC performance, and how to more intelligently validate their carrier s findings. Attendees will learn the following: * How Obligors Develop ESC Rates. * Importance of Appropriate Earnings Patterns. * The Right Level of Detail to Analyze ESC Programs. * Key Drivers of ESC Program Experience. * Examples of Creative Solutions for Under-Performing ESC Programs. Page 17

18 TRACK 14: WARRANTY CONTRACT REGULATION AND IWCM LEGAL UPDATE Track Chair: Daniel Janssen, Partner, Quarles & Brady, LLP 14a SERVICE CONTRACT REGULATION 101 Christopher Karo, Counsel, Frost Brown Todd, LLC State-based regulation of service contracts has increased significantly over the past decade, with many states enacting regulatory schemes impacting the sale of service contracts on automobiles, homes, and various consumer products. This presentation will trace the history of service contract regulation from the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act, identify the basic differences between a warranty and a service contract, and provide an overview of state-based regulatory schemes applicable to service contracts. Attendees will learn the following: * The difference between a warranty and a service contract. * The history of warranty/service contract regulation. * The manner in which states regulate consumer product, vehicle, and home service contracts. * An overview of the basic compliance requirements found in many state service contract regulatory schemes. 14b MANAGING WARRANTY EXPOSURE IN A BUSTED ECONOMY Daniel Janssen, Partner, Quarles & Brady, LLP 14c WARRANTY LEGAL UPDATE / PANEL DISCUSSION Daniel Janssen, Partner, Quarles & Brady, LLP Christopher Karo, Counsel, Frost Brown Todd, LLC Brian Casey, Partner, Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, LLP THURSDAY SCHEDULE 1:00pm - 2:45pm TRACK 15: ISSUE DETECTION AND EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS Track Chair: David Froning, Product Manager for Warranty Solutions, SAS Mr. Froning is the Product Manager for Warranty Solutions at SAS. He works in partnership with manufacturers, suppliers, and industry organizations to develop solutions for manufacturing industry issues such as early warning, accelerated problem solving, and accrual forecasting. Through participation in industry groups and independent research, Mr. Froning works with manufacturing companies to develop best practices for technology applications. His experience also includes work with leading automotive market research firms. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University and a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 15a MAXIZING THE VALUE: INTEGRATING DATA AND TEXT ANALYSIS Joshua Becker, Manager of Reliability, Sub-Zero Freezer Company, and David Froning, Product Manager for Warranty Solutions, SAS For years, manufacturers have shown that effective data analysis can reduce warranty costs by more than 15%. More recently, text analysis has moved into the spotlight. But despite pockets of success, text analysis has failed to show a true ROI on its own. By integrating text analysis with effective data analysis processes, manufacturers are now taking a more comprehensive and useful view of their field failure information. Based on work with Sub-Zero Freezer Company, American Honda Motor Company, Volvo Trucks, and other manufacturers, this session will use case studies to demonstrate how companies have integrated text and data analysis into processes such as claim coding, early warning, data selection, and problem definition to maximize the value of their field failure data. Attendees will learn the following: * Key areas of focus for integrating text and data analysis. * How to increase the effectiveness of their early warning systems. * How to enhance the speed and precision of their problem-solving process. * How to reduce the amount of time spent reviewing warranty claims, while increasing the accuracy of problem definition. * Lessons learned in integrating text and data analysis. 15b ADVANCED WARRANTY CONTAINMENT - THE KEY TO BETTER PERFORMANCE AND HIGHER PROFITS Wayne Relyea, Senior Manager - Technology Solutions, BearingPoint This presentation will provide fact based information on the capabilities of a deployed Quality/Warranty Early Warning System. The presentation will describe and discuss: 1) The business issues driving the implementation of Early Warning Systems, 2) The system architecture and reporting capabilities of a deployed Early Warning System, and 3) Review the proven results from a deployed Early Warning System implementation. This presentation will illustrate that by using all available data, including diagnostics data, emerging issues can be more readily identified, root causes can be more quickly defined and corrective actions can be more readily initiated, thus significantly reducing the detection to correction cycle. Reducing the detection to correction cycle has direct bottom line impacts, both in terms of reducing warranty costs and reducing warranty reserves. Attendees will learn the following: * Warranty costs and accruals; the extent to which they drain on the profitability of a company. * How warranty issues impact Customer Satisfaction. * Warranty Claim data is often untimely, inaccurately reported and lacking critical detail to quickly identify and resolve and the problem. * An Early Warning System is needed to identify emerging quality issues and minimize their impact on the business. Page 18

19 15c SERVICE OPERATIONS CENTERS AS EARLY WARNING MECHANISMS Michael Pawlak, Senior Call Center Solutions Architect, SAS Although leading organizations traditionally have focused more on product design and manufacturing processes than postproduction service, they now view aftermarket service operations and customer support as a business area that is critical to driving cost savings, increased market share and profitability. However, optimizing service operations also means navigating a complex business environment that is marked by potential hazards. Even for the most customer-centric, in-house service organizations, the ability to effectively track and manage a vast number of customer touch points that arise via phone, , the Web or other channels often makes the provision of superior customer service an elusive goal. This session offers a specific focus on using service operation centers as the early warning mechanism to uncover warranty issues. Tying service operation centers in with warranty data can help drive increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand awareness and market share. Attendees will learn how to: * Implement the cornerstones of a superior service operation strategy monitoring, alerting, analyzing, predicting and optimizing. * Apply a metric analysis framework. * Utilize the call center as an early warning mechanism for detecting emerging issues. * Optimize service operations to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction. * Use forecasting to increase the profitability of service operation centers. * Reduce overall service operations and warranty costs. TRACK 16: INNOVATION IN THE SERVICE CHAIN: INNOVATE - ADAPT - ADVANCE Track Chair: Gary Serbousek, Product Manager, 4CS PANEL PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION, INCLUDING: Gary Serbousek, Product Manager, 4CS (Moderator) Kevin Krakora, Director - Customer Service/Warranty, Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift America Jim Ramsdail, Head of Service, Mahindra USA The 4CS Customer Panel will highlight the advantages along with the results of utilizing multiple Service Lifecycle Management applications. Customer case studies will illustrate new creative, technology-driven solutions for managing the complete life cycle across the entire service chain. The panel will focus on new innovations in participative supplier recovery, generative extended warranty, field service collaboration, and product driven technical support - - all tied together within a single service framework. Case studies will also highlight adaptive driven tools with improvements to processing efficiencies, lowering their cost, and reduce manual handing; emphasizing rules, workflow, collaboration and analytic techniques. Attendees will learn the following: * How to improve quality, cost and performance through Supplier Recovery. * How to increase revenues and strengthen customer relationships through Extended Warranty. * How to incorporate best industry practices, as described by leaders in warranty. * How to use the latest innovations to drive service with respect to Improve process efficiency, increase revenues and profits, improve quality, and improve customer satisfaction. TRACK 17: WARRANTY TERMS, OBLIGATION AND LITIGATION Track Chair: Richard Spence, Attorney, Seipp & Flick LLP Mr. Spence graduated from the University of Central Florida in 1995 and received his Juris Doctorate degree, with honors, from the University of Florida College of Law in Mr. Spence was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2000 and is also admitted to practice in the United States District Courts for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts. His areas of substantial experience include: Product Liability defense, Lemon Law/Warranty litigation, commercial litigation, and construction litigation. He has represented, among others, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Isuzu Motors America, Inc., Kia Motors America, Inc., Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc, and Williams Scotsman, Inc. 17a PACKAGING WARRANTY SERVICE AND TERMS Helena Haapio, International Contract Counsel, Lexpert Ltd, and Katri Rekola, Services Development Coach, Rekola Design Oy With the advances of technology, manufacturing companies are offering more and more complicated products to their customers. Over the past decade, with the tremendous growth of outsourcing and networking, supply chains have become more complex and global. Design, marketing and production processes are no longer under one roof. At the same time, the pressures on cutting costs and cycle time are growing. This entails new challenges for warranty professionals. A proactive approach to warranty management involves packaging warranty services and terms and using modularity to simplify the process, leading to cost reductions, better profits, and risk minimization. It begins with service and product design, with aligned warranty and offering management as the goal. Collaboration throughout the whole organization and beyond starting with development teams and contract, procurement and warranty professionals and ending with front line personnel and service delivery teams is essential to success. Proactive packaging can prevent problems from occurring, keep differences of opinion from developing into disagreements and help manage disagreements in ways that prevent them from escalating into disputes and legal action. Focusing on industrial equipment warranties and using a Quick Quiz and real-life examples, this interactive presentation will introduce a proactive approach to warranty management. Attendees will learn the following: * What packaging B2B warranty services and terms means. * Why packaging and aligning inbound and outbound warranties is increasingly important. * How packaging warranty services and terms works and can be used to simplify warranty management and prevent warranty problems. Page 19

20 17b KEY DISCOVERY ISSUES IN WARRANTY LITIGATION Richard Spence, Attorney, Seipp & Flick LLP As warranty litigation continues to expand and become a focus of litigation for some law firms, some companies that manufacture and distribute products will face a steady stream of attacks in the legal system. The participants will learn ways to better handle litigation and discovery issues that are facing companies on a daily basis. If the tips provided are used effectively, the result will be realized in lower litigation costs, including lower costs charged by outside counsel defending these complaints. In addition to the benefits of lower costs, these practices increase the chances for lower settlements, as well as improved trial and/or arbitration results. Specifically, attendees will learn the following: * Potential problems/solutions in litigation that can arise from consumer assistance phone/help centers and related documentation. * The importance of consistency and accuracy in operating guidelines, especially in larger companies with separate regions/departments. * The importance of accuracy and consistency in discovery responses once litigation begins. * How to deal with agency issues that can affect manufacturers that have local independent distributors or service centers. 17c RESOLVING POTENTIAL MAGNUSON-MOSS CLAIMS BEFORE YOUR CUSTOMER SUES YOU Charles Mitchell, Attorney, Rumberger Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. Too often dissatisfied customers hire an attorney and file a breach of warranty lawsuit without first contacting the warrantor and seeking to resolve their concerns in a non-adversarial fashion. If a pre-litigation contact is made, it often comes in the form of a litigation threat letter from a Plaintiff s attorney, and the cost of resolving the matter and preventing litigation includes paying the customer s attorney s fees. The federal Magnuson-Moss Act allows a customer who prevails in a breach of warranty lawsuit to recover his or her attorney s fees from the warrantor. But the Act also requires a customer to afford the warrantor a reasonable opportunity to cure any alleged warranty breach before filing a lawsuit under the Act to enforce the warranty. Courts have varied in their interpretation of what it means to afford a warrantor a reasonable opportunity to cure, and uncertainty exists regarding whether a warrantor is obligated to pay a customer s pre-suit attorney s fees. Written warranty provisions requiring and facilitating direct notice to the warrantor and an opportunity to resolve the concern prior to litigation can be used in conjunction with the statutory cure requirement to reduce litigation and minimize exposure to attorney s fee claims. Warranty professionals dealing with litigation threats need to be familiar with what constitutes a warranty breach under the Magnuson-Moss Act, as well as what it means to have a right to a reasonable opportunity to cure any alleged warranty breach. They also need to know how the terms of their company s written warranty might affect a court s interpretation of what it means to afford the company a reasonable cure opportunity. It is important to develop strategies for preserving and making good use of the company s right to cure, and for dealing with pre-litigation demands for payment of attorney s fees under the Magnuson-Moss Act. To shed light on these legal questions and offer potential strategies, Mr. Mitchell will rely on his extensive experience advising warrantors on pre-suit disputes and litigating the cure issue in summary judgment hearings, jury trials, and appellate court. Attendees will learn: * What constitutes a breach of a written warranty under the Federal Magnuson-Moss Act. * What the Magnuson-Moss Act means when it says the customer must give the warrantor a reasonable opportunity to cure a breach of a written warranty before filing a lawsuit. * What might constitute a cure of an alleged breach of a written warranty. * What are some strategies for dealing with pre-litigation demands for payment of attorney s fees under the Magnuson- Moss Act. * What types of written warranty provisions might minimize the risk of having to pay the customer s attorney s fees. 3:15pm - 4:15pm, Thursday PANEL DISCUSSION: HOW EFFECTIVE WARRANTY MANAGEMENT HELPS AN ORGANIZATION TO REALIZE COST SAVINGS AND REDUCE ITS EXPOSURE TO RISK Ms. Grant will lead the panel discussion based on questions and comments received from WCM 2009 Attendees. Marianne Grant, Vice President, Consultant, Resources Global Professionals (Moderator) Douglas Maddox, Manager - Warranty Analysis Systems, Chrysler LLC Jeff Moore, Claims Manager, GE Frank Kozlowski, Warranty Specialist, Kohler Michael Yates, Vice President - Risk Management & Underwriting, Assurant Solutions Eric Arnum, Editor, Warranty Week CONFERENCE CLOSE 4:15pm - 4:30pm, Thursday Alison Griffiths, WCM Conference Director; President, ALG Associates, LLC CONFERENCE NOTES: 1. Please remember to complete and return your questionnaires. Page 20

21 Sponsors & Exhibitors Sincere thanks to our Sponsors for your support: Smart manufacturers are increasing their focus on post-sale warranty service for one simple reason: It's invaluable for creating better profit margins and repeat business. Warranty service can and should be about more than fixing product field failures. It presents proactive opportunities to identify issues, differentiate your company through exceptional customer service, build customer loyalty, and enhance brand reputation and lifetime value in each customer relationship. In order to produce these results, you must first make sense of the abundance of data collected from warranty claims. Simply reporting on warranty data is not enough. World-class companies act proactively by applying analytics to their warranty data during the adjudication process, allowing them to predict and prevent critical warranty issues. SAS Warranty Analysis integrates field performance data with key customer, product, manufacturing and geographic information to enable organizations to detect and correct issues months earlier and reduce warranty costs by approximately 15 percent. Fulcrum delivers significant incremental bottom-line profit by helping manufacturers and retailers in several key areas: Warranty Loss Costs: Fulcrum is the leader in providing in-depth analysis and predictive modeling of warranty loss costs enabling clients to reduce warranty cost by 15-40%. Extended Service Plan profit optimization: Fulcrum has over a decade of experience in helping manufacturers and retailers improve every element of their ESP programs - driving millions of incremental profit dollars. Fulcrum s Purchase-to-Purchase Operations - Through a deeply segmented view and understanding of customer behavior, Fulcrum s purchase-to-purchase solutions help companies add customer value never seen before. Imagine a holistic view of product sales, service contracts, parts, accessories, and consumables tied together to drive unprecedented customer loyalty and profits. Fulcrum can turn your sales data from yesterday, last week, or last month into a constantly growing incremental profit stream. This provides a winning scenario all around; for the manufacturer, dealer/retail outlet and the customer. With little or no upfront investment, manufacturers and retailers can realize all these benefits and a very rapid ROI. 4CS is the leading provider of warranty software solutions. 4CS iwarranty software helps reduce the warranty cost of the products significantly by improving the quality and reliability of the products, sharing the cost and information with suppliers and business partners along with automating the warranty management processes. iwarranty intelligent software provides a comprehensive, process-driven solution for managing the complete life cycle of warranty across the entire service chain. Focus is on the proactive use of failure/ claim data assuring that the right information is delivered, in a timely manner, to the right people. By addressing product registration, claims processing and payment, parts returns, supplier recovery, service contracts, and the improved visibility to information, users of iwarranty have the tools and processes to help reduce risk and costs related to warranty. Recognized for our virtually seamless integration of product modules and applications iwarranty represents 4CS's on-going commitment to providing the leading warranty management solution. Are you hearing this from upper management? Cut warranty costs! But don t screw-up our customer satisfaction scores! Find out how companies use PolyVista s Discovery to achieve results like these: * Field quality engineers spend 30% to 50% less time analyzing data to find problems. * Time to resolution (find, fix, and confirm correction) went from 10 months to 1 to 3 months. * Warranty spend reduction well in excess of 5%. * Customer satisfaction and premium brand integrity increased via improved problem resolution. In today s challenging and changing economy upper management is demanding that more be done with less; that warranty costs need to be brought under control. PolyVista has a proven track record of delivering value quickly by helping companies cut warranty costs. PolyVista helps companies identify very early emerging product reliability issues and determine what issues have the greatest impact on costs and customer satisfaction. Please stop by our booth or call to find out how PolyVista helps manufacturers cut warranty costs and reduce warranty reserves. Page 21

22 Sponsors & Exhibitors AMT Warranty is a full-service administrator of extended service plans (ESPs) and OEM warranty programs. AMT plans include replacement programs, repair programs and accidental damage protection for a wide range of products, including consumer electronics, telecommunications, computers, peripherals and accessories, home office equipment, cameras, appliances, power tools, lawn and garden equipment, jewelry and more. And we offer bundled insurance underwriting through sister AmTrust Group insurance companies rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best. To learn more about how to increase ESP business, visit or contact an AMT Warranty representative at or espsales@amtrustgroup.com. AMT Warranty Corporation 5800 Lombardo Center Cleveland, OH espsales@amtrustgroup.com NEW leads the industry in developing innovative extended warranty programs and comprehensive service management solutions, providing coverage to more than 150 million consumers worldwide. Founded in 1983, with headquarters in Sterling, VA, NEW provides awardrecognized post-sale consumer care for leading retailers and manufacturers. NEW s expanded product offering delivers comprehensive customer care solutions that begin on day one of product ownership and extends throughout the product lifecycle to the next purchase. Our comprehensive range of services spans the entire product ownership lifecycle giving you increased revenue and more ways to develop long-term relationships with your customers after the sale. Our services include extended service plans, delivery and installation, product support and repair, and trade-in and recycling. NEW also offers service management solutions, including claims management and service intelligence, that can enhance the delivery of service and reduce costs. Learn More - Call WHATSNEW x3475 inquiries@newcorp.com Go to Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, P.A. helps companies avoid and resolve warranty disputes. Based in Florida and Alabama, the law firm handles matters involving a wide array of commercial and consumer products. In addition to representing its clients in arbitrations and trials, Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell advises companies on warranty fulfillment, compliance with consumer protection statutes, and litigation prevention. For thirty years, warranty professionals in companies of all sizes have turned to Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell for assistance in renewing customer satisfaction, minimizing legal expenses, and protecting brand image. In addition to our Sponsors, the following companies will exhibit at the WCM 2009: Aculocity LLC Assurant Solutions Institute of Warranty Chain Management Partsearch Technologies Sedgwick CMS Snap-on Business Solutions Tavant Technologies Page 22