Company Uses Data Analytics to Benefit Everyone Involved

With technological advances and changes in customer preferences, virtually every industry, including the auto industry, is changing how it does business every day.

Recently, Daimler Trucks Asia, together with Deloitte, uncovered data-driven insights that improved the course of the organization.

The innovation began in the quality management department. The process for quality and safety issue identifications and investigations was reactive.

This caused high warranty costs and delayed recalls. It led the company to consider ways to get ahead of the problems and detect the issues before they even happened.

With its vast amounts of data, Daimler Trucks Asia collaborated with Deloitte to better harness data, derive greater insight and translate it into action.

It started by analyzing information from the last 45 major recalls. This included structured data, such as metrics correlated with vehicles, to unstructured data, such as call center records, warranty claims, dealer and technician comments and social-media engagement.

Following this analysis, Deloitte discovered 80% of recalls could have been detected in advance based on historical patterns which, in turn, would have saved Daimler maintenance fees and improved the company’s reputation with customers.

It wasn’t enough to look into the past. Daimler wanted a better sense of the future. 

On a parallel track, Daimler Trucks Asia launched Fuso Super Great, the first connected truck that provides live data on the vehicle’s geographical location and performance in real time. This constant feed of data, combined with historical data, gave Daimler what it needed to anticipate issues before they become problems.

The overall project using Daimler’s data and Deloitte’s analysis is expected to save $8 million in warranty costs in the first 24 months of implementation and even more in recall costs.

Daimler can now predict and prioritize quality issues 13 months ahead of their previous processes. This helps keep customers on the road with less downtime.

Using historical data to determine future issues creates savings for OEMs, dealers and customers.

Ashwin Patil is a managing director for Global Manufacturing Analytics at Deloitte Consulting.