A good product-accompanying service is an important selling point from the customer's point of view. This is why manufacturing companies are increasingly focusing their business model on after-sales service. Qualified after-sales services are a positive differentiating feature or even a unique selling point in competition with competing manufacturers. In addition, companies achieve high returns through product-related services: This can be seen from the fact that although product-related services account for only 20 percent of a company's turnover (for example in the automotive or mechanical engineering industry), they account for up to 80 percent of profits. The customer-oriented services offered can therefore compensate for the shrinking margins in the primary product business and contribute to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty – the company thus ensures sales and profits.
After-sales service includes customer service, parts service (or spare parts management) and the accessories business. Customer service, for example, provides customers with individual service offerings or deals with maintenance, customer training or warranty processing for primary products. Parts service ensures the provision of parts and is an important component of after-sales service. This area primarily includes the disposition, procurement, production, storage and distribution of spare parts. The accessories business includes marketing, disposition, purchasing and storage of supplementary products.
Our goal: To be the leading partner for the manufacturing industry and for service companies through research in the field of after sales service with a focus on parts and customer service. The focus here is on the potential of new technologies within the framework of Industry 4.0, the implementation of process orientation in combination with approaches to holistic production systems, taking into account the requirements of people, technology and organization.
Areas of Research
The After Sales Service group is currently pursuing the research areas of spare parts management, Lean Service Systems and sustainable After Sales Service. The following main areas of research are carried out within the framework of publicly funded research projects and contract research for industry:
Areas of Work
The After Sales Service group has worked on numerous projects in recent years. The employees of the working group cooperated with numerous leading industrial companies from various sectors such as the automotive and automotive supplier industry, rail vehicle construction, the aviation industry or the service industry. The main topics of the industrial projects were among other things: