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Illustration: Debut Art/James Carey
Looking for the best soLution
Development, central Aftersales and workshops work closely together in MAN Truck & Bus
product developments—courtesy of the new Service Engineering department.
The goal: optimized technology over the entire vehicle life cycle and satisfied customers.
>>> Sometimes, the devil is in the detail.
Which would also apply to highly developed
engine technology. When the particle filter
must be removed prior to valve clearance
adjustment in a bus engine, for example,
the resulting extended stay in the workshop
drives up costs for a basically straightforward
service. “And that is not what the inventor
had in mind,” says Georg Pachta-
Reyhofen, Chairman of the MAN SE Board
of Directors. “The competitiveness of commercial
vehicles is increasingly decided by
the life-cycle costs. While maintenance
costs play a relatively small role, at less than
20 percent, the manufacturer, in contrast,
yields much control over them.”
AheAd of Their Time
Against this backdrop, the MAN Board of
Directors assigned Wolfgang Kuchler, former
head of Information Management at
MAN Truck & Bus, to set up a new department
in fall of 2010. This MAN Service Engineering
is responsible for working out precise
reliability guidelines in cooperation
with Research and Development, Aftersales
and workshop practitioners, relating optimized
diagnostic methods and bringing in
new insights as early as the product origination
stage. “The costs of repairs and maintenance
always depend on how the aggregates
are structured, which diagnostic possibilities
exist and how their degree of dissection
ProBLem SoLuTioN
A conducted search for errors in the workshop
includes the evaluation of information from
development and Aftersales and results in
competitive problem solving.
and replacement-part logistics look,” explains
Kuchler, who heads the Service Engineering
outfit today. “Unlike troubleshooting,
which is organized in a single unit at
MAN Truck & Bus, we in Service Engineering
are not concerned with handling the
finished product. We are more active much
earlier in the product engineering process,
meaning the time when the ‘product DNA’
evolves, if you will.” The service engineers
must therefore always stay a little bit ahead
of their time. “In addition, we’re always
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company
looking at the later application of a new vehicle
or aggregate over the entire life-cycle,”
says Kuchler. In order to accomplish that,
the 42-year-old electronic engineer and his
team are in close dialogue with those in
charge at MAN Aftersales, with customer
advisors and workshop foremen. “Our principle
is that of ‘lessons learned‘. We take the
very concrete market needs, the demands
and problems of everyday life on-site, all
the experiences from the Aftersales environment
and integrate them into the creation
of the product.”
The Bigger PicTure
That is not always an easy task, as target
conflicts keep flaming up at the interfaces
between development, production and aftersales.
Are glued or bolted joints better?
How detailed and complex should aggregate
disassembly become? Kuchler’s experience:
“The answers coming from the preassembly
staff are often quite different
from the response in maintenance facilities.”
Production and initial assembly, for
example, might favor a bumper made from
one piece, says Kuchler. In case of damage
or a partial repair, however, the workshop
could please customers with a separable
variant and the advantages in terms of
costs and handling. Looking at the bigger
picture is not a new habit for MAN. “It’s
new, however, that we have established a