Case study · Manufacturing
Warranty decided by the serial number, not the claim form
An equipment manufacturer was paying warranty claims it did not owe and rejecting ones it did, because entitlement was assessed from what the customer wrote. We rebuilt it on Dynamics 365 CRM so the serial number decides.
Project overview
Warranty as a controlled process rather than a negotiation.
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Warranty and service ticketing
- Platform
- Dynamics 365 CRM
- Engagement model
- Dedicated product team
- Scope
- Entitlement, claims, recovery, analytics
- Users
- Support, warranty team, engineering
- Constraint
- Serial-level traceability
- Outcome
- Recovery and failure insight
Expected business outcomes
What warranty costs when nobody checks
Leakage in both directions, and a failure signal that never reaches the people who could fix it.
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−28%
Warranty cost leakage
Entitlement is resolved from the serial number's build, ship and coverage record rather than from the claim, which removes both out-of-warranty payments and wrongly rejected valid claims.
Measured across claim value before and after rollout
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3.2×
Supplier recovery on component failures
When a failure traces to a bought-in component, the supplier claim is raised automatically from the same record rather than depending on somebody noticing.
Measured across recovered claim value year on year
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100%
Of failures reaching engineering as data
Every claim carries structured failure coding against the part, so engineering sees failure rates by component and batch instead of anecdotes from the service desk.
By design: structured failure coding required to close a claim
Business challenges
How warranty was being decided
By a person, reading a form, with no reliable way to check.
The business
A manufacturer of industrial equipment sold through dealers and direct, with warranty obligations running years past the sale.
The starting point
Claims arrived by email and form. The warranty team assessed entitlement from what was written, checking build records manually when something looked wrong.
The trigger
Warranty cost was drifting upward with no explanation, and engineering had no usable failure data despite the company paying for every failure twice.
What they wanted
Entitlement resolved from the serial number, supplier recovery raised automatically, and structured failure data flowing back into engineering.
Constraints
Serial-level build records lived in the manufacturing system, not the CRM · dealers submit claims in varying quality · supplier terms differ per component · failure coding has to be quick or it will not be done.
Proposed solution
What we implemented
Warranty built on serial-level traceability.
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Serial records
Build, components, ship and coverage per unit.
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Entitlement engine
Coverage resolved before assessment.
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Guided claims
Submission that requires what assessment needs.
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Supplier recovery
Claims raised from component traces automatically.
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Failure coding
Structured, required, and fast.
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Failure analytics
Rates by component, batch and build period.
Architecture
How it fits together
Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.
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Serial records
- Build
- Ship
- Components
- Coverage
Every unit as a record carrying what it was built from and what it is covered for.
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Entitlement
- Coverage terms
- Dates
- Prior claims
Resolved automatically before assessment, so the human question is the failure, not the coverage.
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Claims & recovery
- Guided submission
- Assessment
- Supplier claims
One flow from dealer submission through assessment to supplier recovery.
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Failure analytics
- Failure coding
- Rates by component
- Batch analysis
The data engineering was never getting, as a by-product of closing claims.
The serial record is the pivot. Once entitlement, components and failures all hang off it, recovery and failure analysis stop being separate projects.
Key capabilities
What it does day to day
Six capabilities across the warranty lifecycle.
| Capability | Runs | Refresh | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Serial records | System | On build | Unit-level build, components, ship date and coverage |
| Entitlement | Automatic | On submission | Coverage resolved from the serial before assessment |
| Guided claims | Dealer | Per claim | Submission that requires what assessment needs |
| Assessment | Warranty team | Per claim | Failure judgement, with coverage already settled |
| Supplier recovery | Automatic | On component failure | Supplier claims raised from the component trace |
| Failure analytics | Automatic | Continuous | Failure rates by component, batch and build period |
Integrations
How the moving parts plug in
From dealer claim to supplier recovery, on one record.
Claim submitted
- Serial numberThe key to everything
- Guided fieldsWhat assessment needs
- Failure codingStructured
Entitlement & assessment
- Coverage resolvedFrom the serial
- Prior claimsVisible
- Failure judgedBy the warranty team
Recovery & insight
- Supplier claimWhere the component is bought-in
- Failure dataTo engineering
- Cost recordedAgainst component and batch
Because failure coding is required to close, the analytics build themselves. Nobody has to run a separate data-collection exercise.
Security & data
What keeps warranty defensible
Warranty decisions get challenged, by dealers and by suppliers.
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Entitlement from record
Coverage decided from build and ship data, which is evidence rather than assertion.
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Full claim history
Every claim, decision and recovery recorded against the serial.
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Supplier terms as configuration
Recovery eligibility driven by the supplier agreement, applied consistently.
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Dealer accountability
Claim quality and outcomes visible per dealer.
Project requirements
Warranty is a data problem wearing an admin costume
The manufacturer thought it had a warranty processing problem. It had a traceability problem: no reliable link between a claim, a unit, its components and its coverage.
Once the serial record carried all four, entitlement, recovery and failure analysis all followed from the same place.
- Entitlement resolved from the serial, not the claim
- Component traceability driving supplier recovery
- Structured failure coding required to close
- Guided dealer submission
What the implementation had to bridge
- 01Build records in the manufacturing system, claims in CRM
- 02Dealer claim quality that varies enormously
- 03Supplier terms that differ per component
- 04Failure coding that must be fast or it will be skipped
Key challenges & considerations
Four ways warranty leaks
Most of it is invisible until somebody connects the records.
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Entitlement assessed from the claim, not the record
When the claim form is the evidence, the manufacturer pays for equipment outside coverage and rejects claims that were valid, both without knowing.
What we did
Entitlement resolved from the serial number's build date, ship date, coverage terms and prior claims, before a human sees the claim.
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Supplier recovery depends on somebody noticing
A failure traced to a bought-in component is recoverable from the supplier, but only if the connection is made while the claim is open.
What we did
Component traceability from the build record, with supplier claims raised automatically when a failure maps to a bought-in part under supplier terms.
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Failure data that never reaches engineering
Free-text descriptions cannot be aggregated. Engineering hears anecdotes and cannot see that one component fails disproportionately in a batch.
What we did
Structured failure coding against the part, required to close a claim, feeding failure rate analysis by component and build batch.
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Dealer claim quality varies wildly
Some dealers submit complete claims, others submit a sentence. The warranty team spends its time chasing information.
What we did
Guided claim submission that asks for what entitlement and failure coding require, rejecting incomplete claims at submission rather than three emails later.
What we hold to in warranty systems
- Decide entitlement from the record, never from the claim
- Make the failure coding fast or it will not happen
- Recovery should be automatic, not noticed
- Warranty data is quality data — treat it that way
Development process
We connected the serial record first
Nothing else in warranty works until the unit, its components and its coverage are one record.
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Serial integration
Build and component data brought from the manufacturing system into a serial record in CRM.
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Entitlement rules
Coverage terms expressed as configuration and validated against a year of historical claims.
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Failure coding design
Built with engineering and tested with the service desk for speed — a code set nobody will use is worse than free text.
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Supplier terms
Recovery eligibility mapped per supplier agreement and automated.
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Dealer rollout
Guided submission introduced with the dealer network, with claim quality measured from day one.
Technology stack
Dynamics 365 CRM over manufacturing data
The CRM holds the process; the manufacturing system stays the source of build truth.
CRM
- Dynamics 365 CRM
- Custom warranty entities
- Case management
Integration
- Serial and component feed
- Coverage terms
- Supplier agreements
Automation
- Entitlement resolution
- Supplier claim raising
- Claim validation
Analytics
- Failure rates
- Batch analysis
- Dealer performance
Quality assurance & deployment
Tested by the people who use it every day
A CRM succeeds when people choose to use it. Every process was tested with real users on real scenarios, and data migration was rehearsed until the record counts agreed.
- Scenario testing with users from each role
- Migration rehearsals, with record counts reconciled
- Integration tests for every connected system
- Security roles checked against real job roles
- Solutions moved between environments as managed releases
Deployment
- 01Supplier termsRecovery eligibility mapped per supplier agreement and automated.
- 02Dealer rolloutGuided submission introduced with the dealer network, with claim quality measured from day one.
- 03Phased go-liveOne team or region first, then the rest, each wave with training by role.
- 04Hypercare and warrantyDaily support through the first weeks, and six months of free bug fixing.
Business impact
What changed for the manufacturer
Three outcomes, one of which nobody expected.
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Leakage down 28%
In both directions — fewer wrong payments and fewer wrong rejections.
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Recovery up 3.2×
Supplier claims raised automatically instead of when somebody noticed.
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Engineering got failure data
The unexpected one: structured coding turned warranty into a quality feedback loop.
Final deliverables
The serial number answers the question
Entitlement is settled before a human looks at a claim, supplier recovery is raised from the component trace, and every closed claim adds to a failure dataset engineering can act on.
Warranty cost leakage fell 28% and recovery rose 3.2×, but the durable change is that quality now has a feedback loop it did not have.
- Warranty leakage down 28%
- Supplier recovery up 3.2×
- Every failure coded and analysable
- Claim cycle in days rather than weeks
Handed over to the client
- 01Configured Dynamics 365Production and test environments
- 02Solutions and integrationsAs managed, documented releases
- 03Migrated dataWith record counts reconciled
- 04Training by roleWith short guides
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
What it runs at today
The warranty operation as it runs today.
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1
Source of entitlement
The serial number record
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3.2×
Supplier recovery
Raised automatically
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100%
Failure coding
Required to close
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Days
Claim cycle
Down from weeks
How success is measured
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Warranty cost leakage | −28% | Measured across claim value before and after rollout |
| Supplier recovery on component failures | 3.2× | Measured across recovered claim value year on year |
| Of failures reaching engineering as data | 100% | By design: structured failure coding required to close a claim |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our Dynamics work
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