Improving repair operations with remote diagnosis: a case-based simulation for white goods

Although repair is one of the highest value-retention strategies in a circular economy, consumers often prefer new products because they perceive repair as too expensive and slow. The repair of large household appliances is particularly critical, as repair companies must send their technicians to customers’ homes for repairs. Multiple customer visits tie up technician resources and influence costs and time. Introducing remote diagnosis of repair orders could reduce the number of visits per customer. However, technician resources have to be assigned to remote diagnosis resulting in less time for repair activities. This trade-off depends on three dimensions: (1) the number of repair orders to be processed (demand), (2) the success rate of correctly identifying defects and required spare parts during remote diagnosis (information quality), and (3) the allocation of technicians to remote diagnosis tasks, including the time assigned (remote diagnosis design). The focus of the case study is on the organisational aspect of remote diagnosis, examined at an Austrian repair company. The results of a discrete-event simulation indicate that introducing remote diagnosis can indeed positively affect key performance indicators. Remote diagnosis decreases on average the cycle time and the number of lost customers. However, the service responsiveness in hours until the first visit at customers’ home is increased on average. The demand level is crucial for the decision whether to introduce remote diagnosis or not. On the contrary, information quality and remote diagnosis design matter when remote diagnosis is used, but less so for the decision whether to use it or not in the first place.