National Press Release

EAST MOLINE, Ill., June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- 4CS, the leading provider of intelligent warranty management software, announces that New Flyer Industries Inc., the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit vehicles in Canada and the United States, has been using 4CS enterprise iWarranty software for the past year to better manage warranty across its service chain. Specifically, New Flyer is using iWarranty to help drive product quality, close the gaps in its warranty lifecycle, increase supplier recovery, improve customer satisfaction, improve its forecasting of warranty reserves, and more efficiently manage its campaigns.

Solutions, Not Just Software

Hans Peper, New Flyer's Executive Vice President of Customer Services, says, "A key objective achieved was to continue helping our customers, improve our cycle time in claim processing and payment, as well as to provide great visibility to claim and campaign status." Peper added, "4CS proved to be a warranty company with an IT solution, not an IT company with warranty software. We recognized there were few software providers with warranty management solutions. 4CS' iWarranty proved to be a close match to our detailed functionality requirements."

Proactive Quality

Renowned for its industry-leading design and engineering, New Flyer Industries serves many of the largest transit agencies in the United States and Canada. Scott Halbesma, New Flyer's Technical Services Manager, states, "iWarranty has helped drive improvements in product quality with a proactive approach, primarily by keeping us better informed with more timely decision making. iWarranty gives us the ability to have real-time warranty-repair activity monitoring so we can recognize issues more quickly, reduce the number of potential failures, and initiate campaigns faster."

Industry Leading Support

"We are continually adding customers to the iWarranty system and plan to have all customers that have the base bus warranty using iWarranty by the end of this year," said Peper. "The investment in the iWarranty system is just another step forward in maintaining New Flyer's customer service strategy of providing industry-leading support."

Great Improvement

The King County Department of Transportation in Seattle, Washington, was one of New Flyer's first customers to go online with iWarranty. "iWarranty has provided a great improvement in claims processing with New Flyer and we have had a very positive experience," said Lynn Matteoni, Vehicle Procurement Administrator.

Innovative Feature

A special feature added for New Flyer was the integration of its Field Service Action Reports directly into iWarranty. "Having this early warranty service information, which includes complaint calls, fully integrated with warranty and financial data, enabled us to significantly increase our ability to respond to quality concerns and better estimate the dollars needed to support our warranty obligations," noted Halbesma. "The solution significantly helped us reduce the warranty claim cycle by more than 50%, and we are continuing to make further reductions."

Insights

Peper states, "iWarranty is helping us collaborate with our supplier base to improve overall quality as we share cleaner and complete failure information in an expedient manner. In the past, it took a lot longer to pull failure data together and make the information complete. We are now better equipped to go back to our suppliers to properly recover warranty dollars. New Flyer has also taken advantage of the ability to attach photos to a warranty claim helping shorten the cycle time of information-sharing and warranty cost recovery."

Peper adds, "Some of the requirements that led us to iWarranty were increased control on warranty spending, provision management (reserves), campaign tracking, claim recovery, and a more efficient system. We now have better control of our policies and improved our ability to forecast warranty." Halbesma adds, "New Flyer not only enjoys more rapid preparation of campaigns, with greater visibility to campaigns and claims, but also has gained significant efficiencies as a result of the seamless link to claims payment."

4CS

"We are pleased that an industry leader like New Flyer Industries has found significant value in our iWarranty solution," said Gene Weber, 4CS Senior Warranty Consultant. "Working with New Flyer has been a great opportunity for us to deliver value and bring our expertise to the table. They joined several other bus companies in using iWarranty and are the only heavy-duty transit bus manufacturer to offer this type of service. We are committed to supporting their objectives in improving and integrating warranty throughout their entire service chain." New Flyer has the following iWarranty modules: iWarranty e-claims, Warranty Center, Warranty Reporting, Parts Return Management and Supplier Warranty. iWarranty has been integrated with New Flyer ERP - Oracle eBusiness Suite.

About 4C Solutions, Inc.: 4CS is a leading provider of intelligent service software solutions. 4CS iWarranty software helps significantly reduce product warranty costs by improving quality and reliability, sharing cost and information with suppliers and partners, and automating the warranty management processes.

The iWarranty product directly connects manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, partners and customers in a service network. It optimizes the entire warranty cycle through the integration of the following applications: e-Claims, Parts Return, Supplier Warranty, Purchased Warranty, Warranty Analytics Powered by Cognos, and Warranty Center.

For more information, www.4CS.com or call 800.709.8773

SOURCE 4C Solutions, Inc.