Developing a conceptual framework for the field failure feedback process from service-to-design

This thesis addresses the product field failure feedback process from service-to-design,for the purposes of product enhancement within the heating technology manufacturing industry. The research provides insights into existing problems with processing field failure data as an aid to service, design and quality practitioners in their functional roles to support product performance, quality and reliability improvements. Extant research on field feedback process have examined field feedback as a fragmented process and focused mainly on improving the speed and quality of the information flow within. This study investigates such feedback as a holistic process and concentrates on operationalising and improving the feedback between service and design. Understanding what is pleasing and dissatisfying for customers is critical for success in today's competitive market environment. Thus, this requires a systematic process for obtaining feedback from the field about product-in-use performance to influence the design of future product and service market offerings that will genuinely contribute to increased customer satisfaction. The feedback of product-in-use performance data can be used by design engineers to identify potential product failures and prioritise reliability issues, and so prevent their reoccurrence. Furthermore, product innovation and development processes are increasingly driven by shorter time to market, increasing product complexity, and increasing customer demands, all of which have contributed to the challenges of improving feedback from the service to the design. Such challenges need to be addressed if firms wish to actively pursue sustainable product innovation and develop genuine levels of organizational learning. An in-depth case study was conducted with a sponsoring company and qualitative and qualitative data was collected through interviews, and questionnaire surveys. The results from the literature reviews and empirical work have been amalgamated to develop a conceptual framework for the effective field failure feedback process from service-to-design. The framework articulates the various stages of the feedback process and the operational conditions that privilege its effective management and organisation. This framework was subsequently validated with industrial experts using case study methods, following which refinements were incorporated into its overall design.