Solaris Bus & Coach

The organizational solutions of Solaris in the area of warranty processing were not consistent with the WTY module process standard offered by SAP. The company needed this solution to be adapted to its individual business model, with external workshops authorized by Solaris and warranty service agents playing an important role. This is the case on most foreign markets. The role of the warranty service intermediary is assumed by foreign subsidiaries of the vehicle manufacturer, e.g. Solaris Deutschland or Solaris Sverige. The role of the intermediary is to receive and issue opinions on the claims of repair shops and to transfer the claims to the central warranty processing unit at Solaris Bus & Coach, which decides whether to accept or reject the warranty claim. If a vehicle fault is caused by a defective part, it is possible to file a recourse claim against the manufacturer of the part. All this takes place in the system, at the level of the central warranty processing unit.

Savings, automation of ongoing work, and increased efficiency of Solaris’ operations were the results of numerous organizational changes introduced during the implementation of the SAP WTY system by Hicron. These included, among others:

• EXTERNAL USER PORTAL – eSClaim portal solution used by workshops and foreign Solaris companies contributes to the improvement and acceleration of communication as well as elimination of errors.
• AUTONOMY OF FOREIGN COMPANIES – inclusion of foreign companies in warranty claim processing was one of the most important sources of Solaris’ savings. Foreign companies gained independence in making decisions on the acceptance/rejection of claims within a specified scope. If the claim goes beyond this scope – then the request is sent to the Head Office. This change increased the level of service, accelerated the pace of work, and increased the accuracy of decisions on accepting/rejecting claims.
• PRECISE CONTROL OF SALES PROFITABILITY – collecting data on faults in a single system enables their analysis and reporting, providing the basis, for example, for discovering the causes of certain faults. Moreover, data on repairs performed on specific markets helps calculate the profitability of subsequent investments and the sale prices of new vehicles.
• SOURCES OF PARTS – as part of the SAP WTY project, Hicron proposed the implementation of a functionality for indicating the source of spare parts. It shows the place of purchase of parts and enables manual indication of an alternative supplier. This solution helps shorten the downtime of repaired vehicles.

Further stages of cooperation

Near the end of the SAP WTY implementation project, Solaris was very satisfied the quality of cooperation, the course of the project, and the scale of the benefits resulting from the implementation. Therefore, a decision was made to continue cooperation on additional projects and implement them in the agile model.