Review of after-sales service concepts

Abstract

For many manufacturing companies, after-sales service is an increasingly important part of the business and is more complex than manufacturing products. Unlike products it is not possible to produce services in advance and inventory these for future consumption. Instead an unpredictable event such as a machine failure triggers a need for manufacturing of parts for replacement and allocation of resources for the service. Various aspects of after-services are discussed with regards to business model, methodology, performance metrics, service portfolio and production planning and control. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.