Quality Early Warning Module Deploys Text Analysis to Speed Root-Cause Discovery of System-Level Failures
DETROIT--Aug. 3, 20041, 2004--| Allows Manufacturers to Avoid Costly Warranty Liabilities & Product Recalls |
ClearForest Corp., a provider of text-driven business intelligence solutions, today announced release of its Quality Early Warning industry module as part of its product suite. In combination with ClearForest Analytics, the Quality Early Warning module facilitates resolution of warranty, product safety & quality issues through early discovery of component and system-level failures.
Manufacturers are under increased pressure to systematically improve product quality and protect brand value while complying with ever-tightening industry regulations such as Transportation Reliability Enhancement, Accountability & Documentation (TREAD) or Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Every day a quality issue goes unseen or unresolved costs an enterprise dearly--in the case of an automotive manufacturer, warranty costs translate into 1-3% of revenues annually.
"ClearForest's Quality Early Warning analytic application demonstrates the value of text as a new data source," said Henry Morris, Group VP for Integration, Development, and Application Strategies at IDC. "Enabling manufacturers to analyze all available information (both structured data and unstructured text) related to warranty processing can provide a competitive edge in faster identification of product quality issues."
Until recently, a vital component has been missing--situational context such as the "voice" of the customer, service technician, and quality engineer--all of whom have firsthand knowledge of root-cause facts and events surrounding product failure. This valuable intelligence, stored in customer support comments, call center forms, survey data and service technician notes, previously defied structured analysis and was not fully utilized because it existed as free-format text.
The alternative - relying solely on problem codes and manually sifting through information results in inefficient root-cause analysis, missed quality events and poorly prioritized quality resolutions. By enabling organizations to systematically analyze unstructured text and enterprise data simultaneously, ClearForest makes unified business intelligence a reality.
Developed specifically for capital equipment, automotive & durable goods manufacturers, ClearForest's Quality Early Warning solution provides industry-specific expertise necessary to detect, analyze & reduce warranty costs by uncovering root cause & effect.
Quality Early Warning facilitates:
-- Early detection and analysis of failure events
-- Faster determination of root causes
-- Prioritization of issue resolution based on situational context
-- More efficient and effective TREAD compliance
-- Streamlined claims review and handling
-- Improved engineering visibility into text-based market and service information
ClearForest solutions may be deployed as a stand-alone analytics application supporting specific queries, visual analytics and reports, or fully integrated within existing Business Intelligence systems such as those offered by Cognos or Business Objects. Examples of unstructured text sources include web-based survey data, news articles or research as well as other electronic formats such as emails, contracts, spreadsheets and warranty claims.
ClearForest Product Suite:
-- ClearForest Tags: Sophisticated tool set for accurate tagging and categorization of text
-- ClearForest Industry Modules: Deep industry-specific tagging and analytics capabilities to meet market requirements for custom expertise
-- ClearForest Analytics: An analytic system specifically designed for text analysis that adds value to organizations' existing business intelligence tools.
About ClearForest
ClearForest Corporation is a provider of text-driven business intelligence solutions, supplying the analytical bridge between two previously disconnected worlds of information--unstructured text and enterprise data. In allowing both to be analyzed simultaneously, ClearForest makes unified business intelligence a reality. Our award-winning solutions enable customers such as Dow Chemical, Eastman Chemical, Elsevier Science, International Finance Corporation and Reuters to turn large volumes of contextually-based information into proactive business intelligence.
Corporate headquarters are in Boston, MA with offices in New York, NY, and Or Yehudah, Israel. For more information, please visit www.clearforest.com.