SAVE THE DATE: Vehicle Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit (Oct 20-22, 2025)
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Bridgestone Americas Hosts MAPconnected Network Club Study

Agenda Released!

Bridgestone Americas has extended a warm invitation to the MAPconnected Warranty, Aftersales & Aftercare Services Network to host our annual facilitated Club Study on May 7-8 at their headquarters in Nashville, TN. This 3rd annual event promises two (2) engaging days of benchmarking insights, an exclusive Bridgestone/Firestone Distribution Center access tour, AI-SWLM Think Tank meetup, along with two (2) evening networking dinners.

General Motors graciously hosted our 2024 annual Club Study with a participation of 10 OEMs and nearly 30 executives representing: Bridgestone | Cummins | Ford Motor Company | Cummins | General Motors | Navistar | Nissan North America | Peterbilt Motors | Slate | Volkswagen Group of America.

This highly interactive session will explore various warranty topics for OEM, OES Equipment Manufacturers & Aftermarket executives responsible for: Warranty Strategy & Systems | Dealer Administration | Parts Return & Quality Analysis | Purchasing & Supplier Cost Sharing.

Wednesday, May 7 (9am – 7pm) Bridgestone Americas Tower Nashville, TN

Morning Combined Group: Three (3) Key Pillars of Warranty Cost Reduction:

  • Drivers Of Cost Reduction Across The Repair Lifecycle
    • Prior approval / pre-authorization
    • Advanced claim editing
    • Best practices in manual claim review
    • Strategies for reducing warranty repairs on high-value parts like EV batteries, engines, and transmissions
  • Simplifying Warranty Claiming For Dealers And Increasing Usefulness To OEMs and Suppliers
    • Use of Pre-Defined Repair Codes (bundled repair codes)
    • Streamling recall claims and frequent repairs
    • Inclusion or linking to telematics data
    • Improving warranty claim accuracy
  • Improving Warranty Parts Return: Do Warranty Parts Need To Be Returned?
    • Benchmarking current return practices and rates
    • Strategies to reduce requested warranty parts
    • Determining shipment destinations: OEM or Supplier?

Afternoon: Specialized Discussion Groups:

  • Terms and Conditions
  • Dealership Metrics, Reporting & Auditing

Evening Networking Dinner

Thursday, May 8 (9am – 7pm) Bridgestone/Firestone Distribution Center

Morning Combined Group: 

  • Facilitated Tour To Observe Individual Parts Testing Systems That Support Their Warranty Parts Investigations, Quality Systems, And Cost-Sharing Processes.

Afternoon 1pm: AI-SWLM Think Tank Meetup (AI-Service & Warranty Lifecycle Management Think Tank)

  • Future Vision Roadmaps And How To Get POC’s Started!  Agenda forthcoming.

Evening Networking Dinner

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to understand relative performance and share insights with your direct peers!

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Driving Efficiency with AI: Recap of the 2024 Summit

At the 2024 Vehicle Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit, industry leaders explored cutting-edge solutions to streamline processes and reduce human error. From quality code predictions and AI-driven technician comment analysis to leveraging failure type clusters, the focus was on improving claim entry and communication. Highlights included enhancing diagnostic tools, integrating technicians into the quality feedback loop, and fostering trust with customers. This recap showcases the transformative role of AI in advancing warranty and service operations.

Join us in 2025 to stay ahead of the curve!

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Tweddle Group – What is Guided Diagnostics?

What is Guided Diagnostics?

Download the Guided Diagnostics Sample Session Factsheet

What is Guided Diagnostics?


The Industry’s Most Advanced Diagnostics Solution

Guided Diagnostics is the first system to apply a semantic network model in the dynamic prescription of troubleshooting procedures.

Traditional diagnostic systems are little more than a digital presentation of old-school printed diagnostic trees—static IF/THEN procedural flowcharts which lock the technician in to long, time-consuming step-by-step discovery processes.

Guided Diagnostics takes full advantage of the algorithmic intelligence inherent in connected digital systems. On first use, GD identifies hidden connections between issues and root causes, driving the technician to the most likely root cause.

And thanks to its network architecture, Guided Diagnostics reasoning engine ingests data from every diagnostic session, becoming more intelligent—and increasing technician efficiency—with each subsequent use, so your technician teams collectively increase the system’s value as it boosts their efforts in the field.

Why Worry About Boosting Technician Teams?

U.S. service operations face an array of compounding challenges. These challenges impact warranty costs, raise prices for customers and shrink the profitability of service as a whole.

The growing technician shortage represents the largest—and most immediate—threat to service profitability. U.S. Department of labor statistics indicate there are 750,000 technicians currently servicing automotive products. The most experienced segment of this population is presently aging into retirement.

To maintain workforce in the face of this mass exit, the industry requires an influx of 76,000 technicians per year. But the number of annual postsecondary technical training graduates has fallen 34% since 2012. As of this writing, only 39,000 new technicians graduate from the appropriate technical training each year—just over half the necessary number.

The Rising Costs of the Technician Crisis

Those techs who remain in the service bays will be forced to deal with massive product variation and unprecedented levels of product complexity. Familiar vehicles are now stacked with ECUs (Electronic Control Units) and new ADAS (Automatic Driver Assistance Systems) technologies—to the extent one interviewed technician commented, “You have to be a mechanic and an IT specialist now to work on these vehicles.”

BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) have also made it to the service bay, and while these vehicles may be simpler, they’re completely unfamiliar to technicians, and many technicians actively avoid BEV repair orders.

When multi-symptom/multi-DTC (diagnostic trouble code) failures confront technicians—whether they’re new on the job or highly experienced—the only viable solution is trial-and-error discovery. This “try it and see” methodology:

•    Adds minutes, hours—even days—to the repair process
•    Harms customer satisfaction
•    Causes parts damage to products
•    Raises warranty costs

It’s easy to understand the repercussions of these trends: it takes longer—and costs more—to perform a repair than at any point in history, and on the current trajectory things will only get worse.

Even as the industry works out ways to replenish its tech community over the next 10 years, service operations must find immediate methods to counteract the growing resource shortage, along with ways to make technicians more effective in the service bay.

 

Fix it Right the First Time, Every Time

Guided Diagnostics leverages advanced technologies to make techs more effective in the service bay.

The system eliminates costly trial and error, drastically reduces wasted time and expenditures related to warranty and repair, eliminates comebacks, reduces tech frustration and improves customer satisfaction.

Operational improvement will be apparent in the form of better FTFR scores—and a more profitable service operation.

See a Guided Diagnostics Sample Session

The best way to understand Guided Diagnostics is to see it in action.

Download our Guided Diagnostics Sample Session PDF to see how GD improves technician efficiency in a multi-symptom, wire-to-ground diagnostics session.

Tweddle Group. Product Support Made Easy.
 

Download the Guided Diagnostics Sample Session Factsheet
Tweddle Group, 2023

Testimonial Spotlight: Building Connections with Carlos Hernandez – Sogefi

Insights from the 2024 Vehicle Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit

The 2024 Vehicle Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit brought together industry peers to share knowledge and solutions for enhancing service lifecycle and warranty processes. This event provided a unique platform for collaboration, education, and inspiration.

As we look forward to the 2025 summit, explore this testimonial to gain insights into the incredible value MAPconnected Annual Membership and this Annual Summit offers. Don’t miss your chance to join us!

Carlos Hernandez of Sogefi reflected on the value of connecting with peers who understand the unique challenges of warranty management. As both an attendee and a speaker, Carlos emphasized the importance of learning from others, both in formal presentations and through personal interactions.

In his testimonial, Carlos shared his excitement about presenting on a topic he’s passionate about and expressed gratitude for the collaborative environment at the 2024 summit. His experience highlights the value of this event in fostering meaningful professional relationships.

Join us at the 2025 summit to experience the same collaborative spirit!

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